![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Part of the Grace Trilogy. A heavily edited and reworked version of a scene that was cut from Bond. Namely, the actual bonding scene -_-;
Title: Healing
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Continuity: Set in the middle of Bond
Characters/Pairings: Gabriel, Castiel, Dean, Sam. Shades of OT4, possibly, in whatever combination you want, but gen
Summary: The forging of the bond
Wordcount: 2119 (which would have bumped Bond up to somewhere around 6500, had it been left in -_-;
Warnings: Bonding. Possibly mild hystrionics.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Healing
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Continuity: Set in the middle of Bond
Characters/Pairings: Gabriel, Castiel, Dean, Sam. Shades of OT4, possibly, in whatever combination you want, but gen
Summary: The forging of the bond
Wordcount: 2119 (which would have bumped Bond up to somewhere around 6500, had it been left in -_-;
Warnings: Bonding. Possibly mild hystrionics.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Healing
Castiel was far gone. Bloody far gone. Soul was still mostly intact, thankfully, but his Grace was fraying at a frightening rate, unravelling around the strands of Gabriel's he'd tried to stitch himself up with. Bleeding out through Gabriel's hands, his pale features growing steadily more luminous, more ethereal. More lifeless.
Now or never. And never ... wasn't really an option.
"Are you sure?" he murmured softly, asking one last time for safety's sake. And for his sake. He'd never forced himself on anyone. Not like this. He didn't intend to start. "He's too far gone to guide you himself. I'll have to take you through me. So ... you'll be stuck with both of us. No going back."
Not even a second's hesitation. Not even with him in the mix. Not even knowing they'd be bound to the creature who'd killed one of them and tortured the other. Because, and this couldn't be stressed enough, they were all a bunch of idiots.
"Shut up and get to it, archangel," Dean growled from his right. Sam made a noise from his left, part reproach and part agreement. And that was it. That was it.
He reached for them first. Dean through Cas, through the threads linking them, rich and vibrant despite how narrow they were. Castiel hadn't taken much at all, but what had gone had gone willingly. The hunter shuddered as Gabriel reached out to him, gasped as he became aware of what was happening, as Gabriel brought him consciously down with him. Conscious, because Gabriel honestly didn't know what he was doing, and hopefully the idiot would at least show pain if he did anything wrong, yell in time for Gabriel to stop ...
Sam, he had to take himself. As gently as he could. More gently than Cas, but then his little brother hadn't been given time for gentility. Castiel hadn't been given time for much of anything. But Gabriel ... Gabriel could do it right. If he was going to do this at all, he would do it right. He reached out to the hunter's soul, touched it gently, smiling faintly at how clean it really was. He asked ... and was answered. With trust that shocked, really. Not in Cas, but in him. Because he asked. He hadn't ... he hadn't expected that. However willing Sam was, he hadn't expected that. Not for him. But he asked, and Sam gave, shuddering like his brother, gasping in something like awe as he felt ... an archangel's Grace.
And then ... Castiel. Then, his little brother.
Shit, Father, it was bad. It looked bad from the outside, it looked terrible, but inside, reaching along the threads of his Grace down into the wounds, touching his brother's Grace, reaching down to the base of the tears to the soul itself ... Raphael had done a good job. If you defined 'good' as 'effective', anyway. He'd separated thread from thread, torn Grace from Grace, and Grace from soul, and soul from body, and sweet Heaven, how had Cas managed to hold himself together even as much as he had? How had Cas managed to survive?
He moved deeper, trying to understand what this was, how deep it went, how the hell he was supposed to fix it, and he was wincing as he went, feeling the humans flinch alongside him as they followed, as they felt. Like flying over a battlefield. Like flying over the Battlefield, and that had almost killed Gabriel the first time. This ... this was his brother. This was what remained of his brother.
And then, as he reached down, as he touched Castiel ... Castiel reached back. He reached back. Feeble, subconscious, confused, agonised ... he reached back, fumbling around Gabriel's outstretched Grace. Trying to stop it, at first, thinking it was the Grace that had torn him in the first place, and then ...
-Gabriel?-
A silent whisper, his brother fumbling towards him instinctively, unconsciously, trusting to Gabriel to guide him, reaching the way he had reached before, complete and utter trust, without thought. The way Castiel had reached to him twice before, once in gratitude, once in agony. Castiel reached for him, pained and confused, and asked quietly why he was here.
Not fair! Not fair. Bad enough that he had to go fumbling around with no knowledge, two souls, and his brother's life in his hands, but Castiel couldn't have had the good sense to stay unconscious through it? And Cas was struggling now, his Grace flickering feebly as it reached out, mazed and anguished and confused. Sensing Dean, then. Sam, through Gabriel. Sensing them, sensing the wrongness of their presence in this place, and Castiel started fighting, trying to push them back, push them all back. Before they could go too deep, before they could give him something they couldn't afford to lose. Cas wanted to protect them.
Because Castiel was an idiot.
Right. Fine. Not happening, little brother. So not happening. Not on his watch.
He dived in, tugging the Winchesters after him. Feeling the shock of pain as he pulled, feeling them gasp and physically shudder against him as he tugged something that shouldn't be tugged, stretched something that shouldn't be stretched, and then ... Then they were with him. Fully with him. Part of him. Souls threaded through his Grace, through Castiel's Grace, wrapped around in the presence of angels, each other, the touch of soul to soul, and suddenly ... suddenly there was awe. There was wonder, as well as the pain. They stumbled inside him, lost in amazement, and Gabriel flinched around a smile.
Of course. Human. They were human. They had never known this, known what it could be like, known communion as it was meant to be. Neither had Castiel.
And he ... he barely remembered.
But that wasn't the point, not now. That couldn't be the point, not when his brother's Grace stuttered ever closer to the edge, not when Cas was dying. Later. Heaven help him, later.
Grace first, pouring bright and ready. He had enough of it. He had more than enough. An archangel, one of the first, the brightest, the best, and this was what archangels were for. This was what he and his brothers had been for, once upon a time, so long ago, back when things had been good. Back when they'd known who they were, and what they were for. They sustained. They cradled and sustained, fought for and defended, served and protected. This was what Gabriel had been made for. He believed nothing else. And Castiel ... never had there been an angel more deserving of an archangel's Grace. An archangel's service. His brother, who alone of all of them had reached out to him.
Castiel was not dying now. Not now, not ever. Grace, thread on thread, woven into the gaps, poured enough to hold Cas afloat, and Gabriel didn't really care that it was bleeding out as fast as it was pouring in. All he needed it to do was keep Cas alive. He could spare Grace for that. He could spare an ocean for that. And Castiel arched desperately beneath him, flaring in confusion. Castiel twisted in the storm of his Grace, protested the flood, tried to stem it, to hold it, to give it back, but Gabriel would have none of that. None of it. He was as gentle as he could be, against his brother's anguish, but he would not stop. Not now.
Then Dean's soul. Deepest, already part of Castiel. Obdurate and fierce, solid and immovable, Castiel's Righteous Man. The person Castiel trusted so deeply he could ask without conscious will, and expect to be answered. The soul he knew inside and out. The soul he had begged pieces of to hold himself together, the soul he had stemmed the worst wounds with in desperation. And now Dean moved consciously for him. Let Gabriel weave him, thread on thread, into his angel.
Sam, more flexible and frayed than his brother, flowed to fill the gaps, as much part of Gabriel as Castiel, tying soul to Grace, weaving the four of them together. Sealing the edges of the tears, more stubborn than Raphael had been careful, more determined than the archangel had been thorough. Sam sealed the last gaps, held his brother over them, bound them into place. Let Gabriel pour through him, into Castiel, let him pour Grace through the seal, let him sustain his little brother. A soul could grant conscious permission. A soul could allow an angel's Grace. And Sam would give anything he had, to fix the mistakes he had made.
Castiel murmured at them, fumbled against them, weaving his own Grace frantically so they would stop, so they would hold back, fighting to fix himself first, faster. Castiel, too bloody stubborn to quit, fighting them as much as his wounds. Little bastard. Little brother. And Gabriel moved with him. Gentled him, gentled the savage, desperate jerks of that ravaged Grace, wrapped around it, eased it back, and strengthened his brother's efforts. Strengthened Castiel.
And it worked. It worked. More than worked. It was ... breathtaking. Impossible. Incredible. It was ... everything. Everything Gabriel had lost, so long ago. Everything he had yearned for ever since. He felt them, all of them, cleave to each other. Brother to brother. He felt it.
Felt Dean, bewildered and amazed and silently cursing Castiel from one end of their souls to the other, to keep from panicking, curling gently into Sam and Cas and leaning unconsciously against Gabriel's strength. Felt Sam, curious and shamed, clinging tight to an angel's Grace as if it were too painful to bear, and too precious to ever let go, and to a brother's soul simply because he knew nothing else. And Castiel. Staggered, awed, helpless beneath them, laid open without defense simply because he trusted. He trusted them. All of them. Castiel, reaching out to them, doing his best to cushion them, to hold them up and back and not let them fall too far. To keep them as they were, still themselves. Still autonomous.
But they weren't. Not really. Not now, not ever again. Free, yes. Individuals, yes. Retaining choice, will, the ability to annoy the shit out of each other, yes. But not alone. Not wholly autonomous. They were part of something bigger, now. A unity. A union. Part of each other. The way ... the way Gabriel had once been. With his brothers. Part of a union. Part of a whole.
Suddenly, he was afraid. More than afraid. He couldn't do this. It was done, and he couldn't escape, but he couldn't do this. He couldn't be part of this, couldn't touch them this way, couldn't know them this way. Not again. He couldn't have this again, only to lose it. And they ... soon, when the awe faded, when they woke up, remembered who they were, and who he was, and what he'd done ... He couldn't do this. He should never have done this. What was he thinking ...
Something moved, stirred, a flare against his senses. Not the boys. Overwhelmed now, as he eased their consciousness back, they were slipping away, down into sleep. Where they could settle, recover. Where they could let themselves be defended. Not them. Which left ...
Castiel. Stirring sluggishly, barely aware. Hardly surprising, given that he'd just been torn apart and put very clumsily back together. Castiel wasn't going to be properly aware for a long time yet, and Gabriel highly doubted the poor kid was going to remember any of this. Too much to ask, of a soul so badly torn, to remember the tearing. But Castiel stirred against him, as if responding to Gabriel's fear, a muzzy little questioning nudge against his soul. A silent offer of bewildered comfort.
And that ... that was why. That was why. This was going to go badly, so very badly, once they all woke up and regained their senses, but it was done, and that was why he'd done it. Because of Castiel. Because his little brother had asked, in complete innocence, and Gabriel had answered. Gabriel, Dean, even Sam. Castiel had asked, and that had wrought them into this. Castiel opened himself, that terrible trust, and let them in, all three of them, and they couldn't help themselves. Hadn't even stopped to question. Only acted. Only given. To each other and to him.
And now here he was, an Archangel of the Lord, a Trickster and shyster and coward, and he was stuck with them. All bloody three of them. For however long they would have him, and even if they hated him for it. They were stuck with him.
On second thought, he changed his mind. Dad was never being forgiven for making Cas.
Castiel was far gone. Bloody far gone. Soul was still mostly intact, thankfully, but his Grace was fraying at a frightening rate, unravelling around the strands of Gabriel's he'd tried to stitch himself up with. Bleeding out through Gabriel's hands, his pale features growing steadily more luminous, more ethereal. More lifeless.
Now or never. And never ... wasn't really an option.
"Are you sure?" he murmured softly, asking one last time for safety's sake. And for his sake. He'd never forced himself on anyone. Not like this. He didn't intend to start. "He's too far gone to guide you himself. I'll have to take you through me. So ... you'll be stuck with both of us. No going back."
Not even a second's hesitation. Not even with him in the mix. Not even knowing they'd be bound to the creature who'd killed one of them and tortured the other. Because, and this couldn't be stressed enough, they were all a bunch of idiots.
"Shut up and get to it, archangel," Dean growled from his right. Sam made a noise from his left, part reproach and part agreement. And that was it. That was it.
He reached for them first. Dean through Cas, through the threads linking them, rich and vibrant despite how narrow they were. Castiel hadn't taken much at all, but what had gone had gone willingly. The hunter shuddered as Gabriel reached out to him, gasped as he became aware of what was happening, as Gabriel brought him consciously down with him. Conscious, because Gabriel honestly didn't know what he was doing, and hopefully the idiot would at least show pain if he did anything wrong, yell in time for Gabriel to stop ...
Sam, he had to take himself. As gently as he could. More gently than Cas, but then his little brother hadn't been given time for gentility. Castiel hadn't been given time for much of anything. But Gabriel ... Gabriel could do it right. If he was going to do this at all, he would do it right. He reached out to the hunter's soul, touched it gently, smiling faintly at how clean it really was. He asked ... and was answered. With trust that shocked, really. Not in Cas, but in him. Because he asked. He hadn't ... he hadn't expected that. However willing Sam was, he hadn't expected that. Not for him. But he asked, and Sam gave, shuddering like his brother, gasping in something like awe as he felt ... an archangel's Grace.
And then ... Castiel. Then, his little brother.
Shit, Father, it was bad. It looked bad from the outside, it looked terrible, but inside, reaching along the threads of his Grace down into the wounds, touching his brother's Grace, reaching down to the base of the tears to the soul itself ... Raphael had done a good job. If you defined 'good' as 'effective', anyway. He'd separated thread from thread, torn Grace from Grace, and Grace from soul, and soul from body, and sweet Heaven, how had Cas managed to hold himself together even as much as he had? How had Cas managed to survive?
He moved deeper, trying to understand what this was, how deep it went, how the hell he was supposed to fix it, and he was wincing as he went, feeling the humans flinch alongside him as they followed, as they felt. Like flying over a battlefield. Like flying over the Battlefield, and that had almost killed Gabriel the first time. This ... this was his brother. This was what remained of his brother.
And then, as he reached down, as he touched Castiel ... Castiel reached back. He reached back. Feeble, subconscious, confused, agonised ... he reached back, fumbling around Gabriel's outstretched Grace. Trying to stop it, at first, thinking it was the Grace that had torn him in the first place, and then ...
-Gabriel?-
A silent whisper, his brother fumbling towards him instinctively, unconsciously, trusting to Gabriel to guide him, reaching the way he had reached before, complete and utter trust, without thought. The way Castiel had reached to him twice before, once in gratitude, once in agony. Castiel reached for him, pained and confused, and asked quietly why he was here.
Not fair! Not fair. Bad enough that he had to go fumbling around with no knowledge, two souls, and his brother's life in his hands, but Castiel couldn't have had the good sense to stay unconscious through it? And Cas was struggling now, his Grace flickering feebly as it reached out, mazed and anguished and confused. Sensing Dean, then. Sam, through Gabriel. Sensing them, sensing the wrongness of their presence in this place, and Castiel started fighting, trying to push them back, push them all back. Before they could go too deep, before they could give him something they couldn't afford to lose. Cas wanted to protect them.
Because Castiel was an idiot.
Right. Fine. Not happening, little brother. So not happening. Not on his watch.
He dived in, tugging the Winchesters after him. Feeling the shock of pain as he pulled, feeling them gasp and physically shudder against him as he tugged something that shouldn't be tugged, stretched something that shouldn't be stretched, and then ... Then they were with him. Fully with him. Part of him. Souls threaded through his Grace, through Castiel's Grace, wrapped around in the presence of angels, each other, the touch of soul to soul, and suddenly ... suddenly there was awe. There was wonder, as well as the pain. They stumbled inside him, lost in amazement, and Gabriel flinched around a smile.
Of course. Human. They were human. They had never known this, known what it could be like, known communion as it was meant to be. Neither had Castiel.
And he ... he barely remembered.
But that wasn't the point, not now. That couldn't be the point, not when his brother's Grace stuttered ever closer to the edge, not when Cas was dying. Later. Heaven help him, later.
Grace first, pouring bright and ready. He had enough of it. He had more than enough. An archangel, one of the first, the brightest, the best, and this was what archangels were for. This was what he and his brothers had been for, once upon a time, so long ago, back when things had been good. Back when they'd known who they were, and what they were for. They sustained. They cradled and sustained, fought for and defended, served and protected. This was what Gabriel had been made for. He believed nothing else. And Castiel ... never had there been an angel more deserving of an archangel's Grace. An archangel's service. His brother, who alone of all of them had reached out to him.
Castiel was not dying now. Not now, not ever. Grace, thread on thread, woven into the gaps, poured enough to hold Cas afloat, and Gabriel didn't really care that it was bleeding out as fast as it was pouring in. All he needed it to do was keep Cas alive. He could spare Grace for that. He could spare an ocean for that. And Castiel arched desperately beneath him, flaring in confusion. Castiel twisted in the storm of his Grace, protested the flood, tried to stem it, to hold it, to give it back, but Gabriel would have none of that. None of it. He was as gentle as he could be, against his brother's anguish, but he would not stop. Not now.
Then Dean's soul. Deepest, already part of Castiel. Obdurate and fierce, solid and immovable, Castiel's Righteous Man. The person Castiel trusted so deeply he could ask without conscious will, and expect to be answered. The soul he knew inside and out. The soul he had begged pieces of to hold himself together, the soul he had stemmed the worst wounds with in desperation. And now Dean moved consciously for him. Let Gabriel weave him, thread on thread, into his angel.
Sam, more flexible and frayed than his brother, flowed to fill the gaps, as much part of Gabriel as Castiel, tying soul to Grace, weaving the four of them together. Sealing the edges of the tears, more stubborn than Raphael had been careful, more determined than the archangel had been thorough. Sam sealed the last gaps, held his brother over them, bound them into place. Let Gabriel pour through him, into Castiel, let him pour Grace through the seal, let him sustain his little brother. A soul could grant conscious permission. A soul could allow an angel's Grace. And Sam would give anything he had, to fix the mistakes he had made.
Castiel murmured at them, fumbled against them, weaving his own Grace frantically so they would stop, so they would hold back, fighting to fix himself first, faster. Castiel, too bloody stubborn to quit, fighting them as much as his wounds. Little bastard. Little brother. And Gabriel moved with him. Gentled him, gentled the savage, desperate jerks of that ravaged Grace, wrapped around it, eased it back, and strengthened his brother's efforts. Strengthened Castiel.
And it worked. It worked. More than worked. It was ... breathtaking. Impossible. Incredible. It was ... everything. Everything Gabriel had lost, so long ago. Everything he had yearned for ever since. He felt them, all of them, cleave to each other. Brother to brother. He felt it.
Felt Dean, bewildered and amazed and silently cursing Castiel from one end of their souls to the other, to keep from panicking, curling gently into Sam and Cas and leaning unconsciously against Gabriel's strength. Felt Sam, curious and shamed, clinging tight to an angel's Grace as if it were too painful to bear, and too precious to ever let go, and to a brother's soul simply because he knew nothing else. And Castiel. Staggered, awed, helpless beneath them, laid open without defense simply because he trusted. He trusted them. All of them. Castiel, reaching out to them, doing his best to cushion them, to hold them up and back and not let them fall too far. To keep them as they were, still themselves. Still autonomous.
But they weren't. Not really. Not now, not ever again. Free, yes. Individuals, yes. Retaining choice, will, the ability to annoy the shit out of each other, yes. But not alone. Not wholly autonomous. They were part of something bigger, now. A unity. A union. Part of each other. The way ... the way Gabriel had once been. With his brothers. Part of a union. Part of a whole.
Suddenly, he was afraid. More than afraid. He couldn't do this. It was done, and he couldn't escape, but he couldn't do this. He couldn't be part of this, couldn't touch them this way, couldn't know them this way. Not again. He couldn't have this again, only to lose it. And they ... soon, when the awe faded, when they woke up, remembered who they were, and who he was, and what he'd done ... He couldn't do this. He should never have done this. What was he thinking ...
Something moved, stirred, a flare against his senses. Not the boys. Overwhelmed now, as he eased their consciousness back, they were slipping away, down into sleep. Where they could settle, recover. Where they could let themselves be defended. Not them. Which left ...
Castiel. Stirring sluggishly, barely aware. Hardly surprising, given that he'd just been torn apart and put very clumsily back together. Castiel wasn't going to be properly aware for a long time yet, and Gabriel highly doubted the poor kid was going to remember any of this. Too much to ask, of a soul so badly torn, to remember the tearing. But Castiel stirred against him, as if responding to Gabriel's fear, a muzzy little questioning nudge against his soul. A silent offer of bewildered comfort.
And that ... that was why. That was why. This was going to go badly, so very badly, once they all woke up and regained their senses, but it was done, and that was why he'd done it. Because of Castiel. Because his little brother had asked, in complete innocence, and Gabriel had answered. Gabriel, Dean, even Sam. Castiel had asked, and that had wrought them into this. Castiel opened himself, that terrible trust, and let them in, all three of them, and they couldn't help themselves. Hadn't even stopped to question. Only acted. Only given. To each other and to him.
And now here he was, an Archangel of the Lord, a Trickster and shyster and coward, and he was stuck with them. All bloody three of them. For however long they would have him, and even if they hated him for it. They were stuck with him.
On second thought, he changed his mind. Dad was never being forgiven for making Cas.
Tags: