Fic: The Reunion
Title: The Reunion
Author: mangacrack
Characters: Sam/Gabriel, Castiel
Rating: R
Warning: fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, halos and wings
Word count: 2939
Summary: Sam is reunited with Gabriel.
Notes: Written for enmuse‘s birthday prompt at sabriel_bday “Sam can see and hear angels without getting his brains scrambled.” I had several unsuccessful attempts and intended to settle with a drabble, but I kept writing until I was satisfied with the end. Now, here I am. I wish you a Happy Birthday and hope you like it. Oh, and: Heylel was supposed to be Lucifer’s name before he fell and Mikhail is Michael’s name in old Hebrew.
My eternal thanks belong to novakev, who was so kind to act as my Beta reader.
mangacrack
Sam jerked awake - when he heard the faint flutter of wings. In the next instant a heavier beat followed that suggested the angel’s landing and by the time Castiel was true and solid, standing in the dark room, Sam was already out of bed. Castiel’s blue piercing eyes searched for Sam and he then seemed relieved, Sam could see how his wings shifted the next moment into a more restful state.
“Castiel,” Sam asked and noticed that the wings were slightly quivering at their ends, which was always a sign for distress, “What happened?”
“I need your help,” Castiel blurred out. “Please Sam, I am aware this is sudden and unexpected at an hour like this, but could not think of anybody else.”
“Yes, sure” Sam answered, already grasping his jeans. “What can I do for you?”
The feathers of Castiel’s wings shivered quite violently, Sam observed with dread. This was definitely not a good sign. It took a lot to make every feather of an angel shake. The last time he saw Castiel like this - with a sorrowful and an apologetic expression - was when he brought him to Dean’s grave.
An entire age inside hell, where laws were made by those strong enough to survive, did not stop time from following its own pace on earth. Dean was dead, because he had aged like any human did, unlike Sam when he returned.
Sam pushed the thought aside; when Castiel stepped closer to him, grasping his shoulder in obvious worry and in search of support.
“We found him Sam,” Castiel whispered his voice stressed, because his emotion threatened to overwhelm him, “We found Gabriel.”
Sam’s heart throbbed and he felt like someone had punched him in the guts. Raw emotions circled through him, leaving him to feel the ache again he had only experienced a few times in his life: when Gabriel died, when he had said Yes and when Death came to separate his soul from Lucifer’s grace.
“Is this … is it true?” Sam whispered.
A faint flutter of hope nestled inside his chest. He didn’t want to believe it, not if getting his hopes up meant, he could lose Gabriel to an error of Castiel’s judgement.
Castiel stared at him, like he was slightly offended by Sam’s doubts, because he would never do something like this to Sam, but he refrained from voicing it. There was no need - for either of them - because Sam looked as distraught as he felt. In the end Castiel just pulled Sam to him and shifted them away, far away to the refuge, where he had hidden Gabriel.
Sam absently felt the familiar pull of flying in the arms of an angel, but his only thought consisted of the old faint scar on his hip in the form of a hand print, which itched the first for time ever since he had felt Gabriel’s grace explode.
-
The world tilted on itself, when Castiel landed in a wide and vast land no human had set a foot in for ages. Angels rarely came here, since it was a bitter reminder of history gone wrong, but it was the perfect sanctuary for an injured archangel. Castiel was relieved to have finally found him. Gabriel’s death had been unnatural since archangels shouldn’t be able to die. They were too old, too interwoven with the structures of the universe to ever truly die. It was in their nature to change and shift in order to exist, but they never slipped into the restful state humanity called death.
Sam’s survival through the ordeal that had been his life was proof of that.
Castiel had suspected it since the day Gabriel had marked Sam with his grace. It had appeared suddenly, discovered by Dean in a morning hour, back then when they had been fighting as Team Free Will. His own mark on Dean’s shoulder was a result of the time and effort he had put into freeing the tormented soul from the pit, but it had taken years to seep deep enough in order to form a mark on Dean’s flesh.
Sam and Gabriel had never shared such a connection. Or so Castiel had thought.
Now, Sam slowly shook of the side effects of flying through time and space, and he looked around desperately searching for Gabriel. The one, who had given him enough hope, faith and the means to transform the apocalypse into a stalemate. Curiously Castiel watched how Sam found the right direction instantly. For all the things Sam had done and survived he was still human (mostly anyway) with all their flaws and weaknesses, despite the fact that being Lucifer’s vessel for so long had altered his nature into something Heaven had yet to define.
Unique as Sam was neither Castiel nor Raphael could truly touch him, because both of them considered Sam as a useful source on occasion. Raphael did not touch Sam because the Winchester remained to be Lucifer’s only vessel and blessing him with an unending life seemed less troublesome for the healer than moulding a new one, when the cage was reopened. A logical deduction and Castiel was glad Raphael ignored Sam most of the time, but he doubted his reasoning, because some angels saw Sam as prophet. As an advisor given by their father like the Son had been once.
At first Castiel had dismissed this idea, but piece by piece the puzzle had solved and the Challenger of Heaven knew he was close to the truth, when he saw Sam walk towards to the bright creature of light that was Gabriel’s unbound form.
During the apocalypse he had wondered why Gabriel had take a liking to Sam, marked him even, when he was Lucifer’s vessel. Now he wondered about Sam’s role, as the first human, who ate from the Tree of Life since Yeva and Edom had left Eden. It had been a necessity, proposed by all remaining archangels, if they wanted Sam alive, when the cage opened again, yet the symbolism and the significance had escaped them all. Even Castiel himself, who prided himself for establishing that the concept of freewill had began to finally settle in Heaven.
At least until he had found The Messenger alive, but injured floating over the ancient gates of Babylon.
Right there, right then Castiel had made a connection, had realised a connection, which should have been obvious, but had escaped him until now. It was not a coincidence that Gabriel had retreated to a time and place, when humanity had nearly stood in front of the gates of heaven and had not yet been punished for it.
Gabriel was The Messenger, Castiel remembered and if he suspected correctly then Sam was his message.
His message for Heaven that nothing was impossible, when you choose to stand united.
It had to be, because Castiel could not think of anything else, why and how Sam survived the cage without being turned into a loyal follower of Lucifer (or Michael).
To allow Sam in front of Gabriel, when he was not inhabiting a vessel, was a risk, but Castiel was willing to take it. He had faith in Sam and Gabriel. Furthermore he had to see, had to witness …
-
Little mattered to Sam, when he laid his eyes on the faint glow of the creature that was sitting on a rock formation like a lion on guard. The wind was whispering to Sam, was pushing him towards the light he knew was Gabriel. Slowly, unsure after the length of time he had spent waiting, Sam gathered himself on his bare feet and headed over burned grass to the being he had come to love without knowing it.
The light that surrounded him was bright and hot, but nothing he had not grown used to while he was in the cage. Heylel’s light was brighter than this and Mikhail’s own grace resembled the fire of a sun.
Gabriel emitted a light that was vibrant and clear, not as forceful as Mikhail’s and not as concentrated as Heylel’s.
More importantly Sam remembered this light. Somewhere deep in his soul he knew he had seen this before; it seemed so familiar to him. It always had, since the day he first met the Trickster, who smiled and flirted openly with him. He had been too driven by the hunt back then to recognize it, but when Gabriel had pulled him into his own world of life, death and repetition a gut wrenching feeling had sunk into his soul until the revelation of Gabriel, the Archangel, had not been a surprise anymore.
Sam remembered the sad and powerful face, lightened by the holy fire that trapped him, as clear as he remembered the features in front of him.
The two all-seeing eyes that had been fixated on him since he arrived reflected galaxies and they woke a faint memory. As did the hands that rested between Gabriel’s feet, which were perched on the rock like an eagle. Sam remembered these hands holding him. They were slightly claw shaped and pale white like the rest of Gabriel’s skin. But he recalled touching both, even if the occasion escaped him.
Perhaps when Gabriel came to him this one night, when he had overpowered Famine and suffered the consequences in his surrogate father’s panic room?
Two fingers gently touching his forehead …
A voice speaking in the language of heaven …
Love flowing through his body, his soul and his mind until all of the demon blood had been replaced by something else …
“Gabriel,” Sam spoke when he had reached the bottom of the high rock.
Even when forgotten memories were flowing through him like fresh water through a dry river, his mind vividly remembered Gabriel dying, Gabriel’s grace exploding, Gabriel screaming … his absence had been unbearable, a hole in his chest …
“Gabriel is this you?” Sam asked.
Part of him knew this was Gabriel, knew these six wings - extending from the back of the naked creature above him - belong to Gabriel, but he had to hear it.
A part of him had hoped that Gabriel was alive, because archangels were not supposed to die, but nothing had ever happened. No flutter of wings that brought back a sugar obsessed, slightly arrogant archangel, who always seemed to know better than everyone else until he went to confront his brother and died …
“Sam…”
The voice sounded over the plain and rattled at chains Sam did not know existed. But the voice was comforting and welcoming, it held joy and love and now there was a huge wing extending itself and reaching towards him until it had wrapped itself around Sam.
“Sam,” the voice said, wrongly announced again, “You are alive…”
The feathers of the wing that embraced Sam tightly suddenly pulled and lifted Sam into the air until he was far enough to be caught by long strong arms with slightly clawed hands.
“Gabriel,” Sam breathed quietly and touched the white skin that burned under his hands and had yet to hurt him.
But it never would. Sam knew…
“You are alive,” Sam repeated Gabriel last words, because he could not quite believe it, even when the first chaste kiss told him that it could not be anyone else. “You are alive.”
“I am,” Gabriel’s voice boomed and resonated in his shuffling, never resting wings.
Hands held him tightly, arms surrounded Sam’s entire body and wings were shielding them from sight and any known harm, as Sam clung unto Gabriel’s neck. In this form Gabriel was slightly bigger than himself and with his white skin he looked so unlike the human vessel he had possessed on earth that Sam was perplexed by the new sight at first. Yet he did not fear Gabriel and Sam was aware of this soul deep trust that did not find its root in the love and affection alone, he felt for Gabriel.
Too much time had passed, nearly two hundred years since they saw each other last, but Sam could not deny the old trust and familiarity, which emerged to the surface of his consciousness. When Gabriel grabbed him and pulled him closer to his naked body, Sam noticed two smaller wings that grew out of the side of Gabriel’s head and formed a swan crown around it.
His halo … Sam realised and recognition came upon him.
Carefully his fingers buried themselves into Gabriel’s white golden hair until he touched the bases. It drew a small moan from Gabriel’s mouth, who had simply concentrated on embracing Sam so much as it was possible.
“Sa … Sam,” Gabriel pronounced the name with great difficulty, “You are not … yet …”
“I remember this,” Sam whispered and massaged slowly the wings that formed the angel’s halo. “I remember … you … from before, when we were …”
Sam was close, he knew this. So close … he had been with Gabriel before, before had told Gabriel - his mate - to seal his memories, to let him be reborn as a human child that would be …
… Heylel’s vessel.
Sam stared at Gabriel, stared into the old and familiar eyes, eyes he had loved so much that he could not bear the sadness reflected inside them … the war had caused too much grief already.
“I was,” he realised, when he remembered what he had purposely forgotten in order to reunite Heylel with Mikhail again. “I am … “
“Sammael!”
It was not only Gabriel’s voice that echoed over the Garden of Eden, but it was definitely Gabriel, who cried holy tears, when his mate remembered, who he once was. He had begged him to be reborn as human, letting Gabriel believe Sammael had finally given up as well, at least until he found Sam Winchester to be Lucifer’s next vessel. It tore through his core, when he laid his eyes on his clueless human mate, who did not remember and yet fell in love with Gabriel anyway.
“I did not know”, Gabriel admitted and reached for Sam Winchesters soul to release Sammael’s bound grace. “I did not know, what you had planned, Sammael. But I did as you asked, when you wanted me to trust you.”
“I thought you were gone”, an old voice poured into Gabriel’s mind like fresh water into the mouth of a dehydrated man, “When I emerged from the cage, you were believed dead, my human self had witnessed it. I thought ignorance from my old life and exile from Heaven would be easier to bear. To think that I finally brought Heylel and Mikhail together in one place, just to lose you in return. Archangels aren't supposed to die, but since I just had witnessed the impossible...”
Gabriel saw Sammael’s strength grow with every bit Samuel Winchester began to remember.
“You did this for me?” Gabriel asked, “You convinced the majority of the other archangels of starting the apocalypse and let yourself to be reborn as human in order to ensure the seals would be opened with the intention to reunite Heylel and Mikhail?”
“Yes” Sammael - Sam - answered earnestly. “A few things I had to do myself, being Heylel’s vessel was one thing and I had to be human for that. Will you forgive me, beloved? For risking everything between us for a small chance to end this war?”
“Yes” Gabriel answered before he bowed his head to kiss Sammael hard and with a hint of desperation. A century of mourning his mate was not easily forgotten. “Heaven, yes I do.”
When Sammael’s human body reacted with lust and pleasure, Gabriel decided everything else could wait, but they would have to talk about that self-sacrificing streak, which had infected nearly every person in Sam Winchester's life and had made that family so infuriating stubborn.
But not now, Gabriel concluded, then he kissed Sammael again and pressed their bodies together. Now he had more important things to do. He needed to feel Sammael again, after nearly a century of mourning him and even a longer time of separation. Groaning in bliss, when Sammael rubbed his fingers against his crown again, Gabriel opened his wings and let the wind carry them over the Garden.
-
Unseen by the reunited lovers, Castiel disappeared with a flutter of wings and smiled because Sammael was not the only one, who finally remembered a few things that had been purposely forgotten before. Their father would be pleased to know that Sammael’s crazy idea - locking Heylel and Mikhail in a confined space until they solved their issues via angry sex - had actually worked.
Now he could finally go back to Daniel and thank him for his support. Looking after Sammael was never easy, neither as human nor as angel.