Supernatural Fic - all that love all those mistakes (what else can a poor man make)
Title's from Josh Ritter, yo. Either "Idaho" or "Bandits," as the line appears in both songs.
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Title: all that love all those mistakes (what else can a poor man make)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1260
Characters: Sam, Gabriel, Dean, Lucifer (pre-Sam/Gabriel)
Spoilers: 5.19
Warnings: Bit of blood, bit of language.
Notes: AU for 5.19 "Hammer of the Gods." Originally written for hawk_dancing over at comment_fic for their free-for-all day. Prompt was "Supernatural, Sam/Gabriel + Lucifer, just as Lucifer is about to kill Gabriel Sam shows up growling 'You can't HAVE him!'"
Summary: Sam can't bear to lose another one. Not another one, not after all that's already happened.
--
They're less than a mile down the road when Sam flips the fuck out. "We have to go back," he tells Dean, clutching at his brother's arm.
"You're insane, we'll die," Dean hisses, staring straight into the dark, trying to keep the car on the road.
"You know Lucifer's gonna kill him. You know he is!"
Dean tears his eyes away from the windshield and looks at Sam for the briefest of moments. "He made his choice, and it was the right one."
"Dean, we can't let somebody else take a bullet for us. Not again," Sam pleads.
Dean's shoulders become tight and angry. "Shut up, Sam. Just..."
"Jo, and Ellen too. Pamela. Even Dad. Even Castiel," Sam says. And he coulda listed others, a dozen others or more, but those are the freshest, the rawest.
"Fuck, Sammy! Shut up!" Dean growls, slamming a fist on the steering wheel and making the car jolt. "We don't even know about Cas, all right? He could be fine, he could just be laying low..."
Sam stares at him, huffs out a disbelieving breath. "Not another one, Dean. Not him too."
"Jesus," Dean sighs, angry and resigned. His foot leaves the accelerator for the first time since the parking lot of the Elysian Fields.
"You two are mad," Kali sneers from the back seat. "He's one angel." They've apparently made it out of Lucifer's range, though, because she vanishes as soon as Dean turns the car around to head back.
--
Sam crashes through the door just in time to see Lucifer swing Gabriel's blade right into his own gut. There's this moment, this horrible still moment, where Sam really believes he's too late. Then Gabriel's eyes slide to him, all pain and anger and disbelief, and Sam realizes it wasn't a clean strike and the trickster isn't dead just yet.
"Hey!" he bellows, and Lucifer turns around with an utterly perplexed look on his face.
"Sam?" he says, still holding Gabriel by a shoulder, the impaled archangel twitching around the blade, eyes welling with light. "I thought you'd be halfway to Ohio by now."
"Nah, forgot something," Sam replies with a strained voice, and if he's shaking, what of it? He's interrupting a duel between fallen archangels, this isn't exactly something he's able to steel himself for.
Lucifer looks upwards and gives a rather unamused laugh. "My brother? I'm afraid you're a bit late for a heroic rescue, Sam." He twists the blade a bit and Gabriel yelps, the noise shot through with escaping Grace.
Sam pulls out a scrap of cardboard from inside his jacket, wet with blood in the shape of a banishing sigil. He just hopes Lucifer is still angel enough to be affected by it. It's painted with the symbols for Lucifer's name, making it specific (something he'd learned from Cas in the long nights when Dean would be out drowning his own hurts in alcohol, when Cas had traced his fingers in Enochian shapes, teaching Sam to defend himself if it ever came to that), and Sam slaps his cut palm to the board.
He gets a glimpse, nothing more, of Lucifer's face, twisted in surprise and rage, and then the devil's gone, and Gabriel collapses to the floor, still pinned on his blade.
"Jesus, Gabriel!" Sam exclaims, loping over. The archangel is twisting on the ground, hands fluttering towards the sword and then pulling back, like he's afraid he'll just make it worse.
Sam kneels beside him, easing the blade out at the exact same angle it went in, and he offers up thanks that he's had to do this so many times before because of their lifestyle. Blood and light are pouring out of the wound and out of Gabriel's mouth and for a second Sam is completely lost.
Then he's shrugging out of his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt, and Gabriel is staring up at him with something that wants to be a grin on his face. "Always wanted to get you outta those clothes, Sammy. Didn't...didn't know I had to get myself killed to do it."
Sam presses his balled-up shirt to the wound, his mouth a grim line. "Just stay quiet," he says.
Gabriel doesn't listen, has never been good at listening. He was the Messenger, it was his job to talk. "Where's your brother?"
"Outside," Sam tells him. "I figured if he came in with me, Lucifer'd probably just use him to get me to say yes."
Gabriel chokes on a laugh. "Look at y-you. Man with the plan." Each word is a bubble of light boiling up out of his mouth.
"You wouldn't, uh, be able to heal yourself, would you?" Sam asks, running through options in his head.
Gabriel rolls his head on the floor and the noise he makes is something like hysterical giggling. "See that?" he says, one hand flopping in the general area of the Grace leaking past the edges of Sam's shirt. "Say bye to my h-healing abilities. I'm dead, Sam, you j-just won't let me go."
Sam desperately wishes Castiel was here, because he'd probably have some sort of advice.
"You shouldn't have come b-back," Gabriel scowls as Sam picks him up, cradling him and trying not to aggravate his wound. "I t-told you to get outta here. Y-you're lucky I'm not gonna be around much longer, or I'd show you an old-f-fashioned smiting for d-disobedience."
"Yeah, yeah, okay. You can smite my ass from here to Washington later," Sam agrees, weaving his way back out past the gory remains of the gods Lucifer had destroyed so easily. His shirt is now solidly red, and light's still peeking around it.
"God almighty," Dean spits when Sam emerges into the cold April night. Out here it's even more apparent how bad it is--Gabriel's lighting him up like a spotlight. There's a searing sensation on Sam's arms and side that he tries really hard not to think about, because if wings were slowly burning away, he imagines that's what it might feel like.
They stitch Gabriel up right there on the hood of the car, treat him like he's a human because they have no idea what to do for an angel. He rolls his eyes blindly and growls at them while Dean pulls the surgical thread through his skin, closing the wound. Grace seeps through the stitches, but it's considerably less than before.
Gabriel loses consciousness before they even hit the border of Illinois, and for a minute Sam's sure he's dead. But no, there's still a faint glow lighting up the gauze they'd wrapped around his middle, and his bare chest is still rising and falling shallowly.
Dean glances into the rearview mirror and then flicks his eyes back to the road. "Jesus," he breathes again, and Sam thinks he agrees.
--
By the time they remember the DVD Gabriel had pressed into Dean's hands, the archangel seems to be stabilizing. He's still comatose, like he's been since they'd left Indiana, but he seems less pale. The glow from underneath his bandages has lessened, but his breathing is more steady, so Sam's hoping that's a positive, that it means Gabriel is healing.
Dean pops it into the DVD player and starts it up. It's eerie, watching Gabriel so full of life and obviously ready to throw it away.
If you're watching this, I'm dead, Gabriel tells them from the television. Sam can't help but glance at the archangel, looking small and frail as he sprawls across the motel room bed, and think not yet, not yet.
--
Title: all that love all those mistakes (what else can a poor man make)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1260
Characters: Sam, Gabriel, Dean, Lucifer (pre-Sam/Gabriel)
Spoilers: 5.19
Warnings: Bit of blood, bit of language.
Notes: AU for 5.19 "Hammer of the Gods." Originally written for hawk_dancing over at comment_fic for their free-for-all day. Prompt was "Supernatural, Sam/Gabriel + Lucifer, just as Lucifer is about to kill Gabriel Sam shows up growling 'You can't HAVE him!'"
Summary: Sam can't bear to lose another one. Not another one, not after all that's already happened.
--
They're less than a mile down the road when Sam flips the fuck out. "We have to go back," he tells Dean, clutching at his brother's arm.
"You're insane, we'll die," Dean hisses, staring straight into the dark, trying to keep the car on the road.
"You know Lucifer's gonna kill him. You know he is!"
Dean tears his eyes away from the windshield and looks at Sam for the briefest of moments. "He made his choice, and it was the right one."
"Dean, we can't let somebody else take a bullet for us. Not again," Sam pleads.
Dean's shoulders become tight and angry. "Shut up, Sam. Just..."
"Jo, and Ellen too. Pamela. Even Dad. Even Castiel," Sam says. And he coulda listed others, a dozen others or more, but those are the freshest, the rawest.
"Fuck, Sammy! Shut up!" Dean growls, slamming a fist on the steering wheel and making the car jolt. "We don't even know about Cas, all right? He could be fine, he could just be laying low..."
Sam stares at him, huffs out a disbelieving breath. "Not another one, Dean. Not him too."
"Jesus," Dean sighs, angry and resigned. His foot leaves the accelerator for the first time since the parking lot of the Elysian Fields.
"You two are mad," Kali sneers from the back seat. "He's one angel." They've apparently made it out of Lucifer's range, though, because she vanishes as soon as Dean turns the car around to head back.
--
Sam crashes through the door just in time to see Lucifer swing Gabriel's blade right into his own gut. There's this moment, this horrible still moment, where Sam really believes he's too late. Then Gabriel's eyes slide to him, all pain and anger and disbelief, and Sam realizes it wasn't a clean strike and the trickster isn't dead just yet.
"Hey!" he bellows, and Lucifer turns around with an utterly perplexed look on his face.
"Sam?" he says, still holding Gabriel by a shoulder, the impaled archangel twitching around the blade, eyes welling with light. "I thought you'd be halfway to Ohio by now."
"Nah, forgot something," Sam replies with a strained voice, and if he's shaking, what of it? He's interrupting a duel between fallen archangels, this isn't exactly something he's able to steel himself for.
Lucifer looks upwards and gives a rather unamused laugh. "My brother? I'm afraid you're a bit late for a heroic rescue, Sam." He twists the blade a bit and Gabriel yelps, the noise shot through with escaping Grace.
Sam pulls out a scrap of cardboard from inside his jacket, wet with blood in the shape of a banishing sigil. He just hopes Lucifer is still angel enough to be affected by it. It's painted with the symbols for Lucifer's name, making it specific (something he'd learned from Cas in the long nights when Dean would be out drowning his own hurts in alcohol, when Cas had traced his fingers in Enochian shapes, teaching Sam to defend himself if it ever came to that), and Sam slaps his cut palm to the board.
He gets a glimpse, nothing more, of Lucifer's face, twisted in surprise and rage, and then the devil's gone, and Gabriel collapses to the floor, still pinned on his blade.
"Jesus, Gabriel!" Sam exclaims, loping over. The archangel is twisting on the ground, hands fluttering towards the sword and then pulling back, like he's afraid he'll just make it worse.
Sam kneels beside him, easing the blade out at the exact same angle it went in, and he offers up thanks that he's had to do this so many times before because of their lifestyle. Blood and light are pouring out of the wound and out of Gabriel's mouth and for a second Sam is completely lost.
Then he's shrugging out of his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt, and Gabriel is staring up at him with something that wants to be a grin on his face. "Always wanted to get you outta those clothes, Sammy. Didn't...didn't know I had to get myself killed to do it."
Sam presses his balled-up shirt to the wound, his mouth a grim line. "Just stay quiet," he says.
Gabriel doesn't listen, has never been good at listening. He was the Messenger, it was his job to talk. "Where's your brother?"
"Outside," Sam tells him. "I figured if he came in with me, Lucifer'd probably just use him to get me to say yes."
Gabriel chokes on a laugh. "Look at y-you. Man with the plan." Each word is a bubble of light boiling up out of his mouth.
"You wouldn't, uh, be able to heal yourself, would you?" Sam asks, running through options in his head.
Gabriel rolls his head on the floor and the noise he makes is something like hysterical giggling. "See that?" he says, one hand flopping in the general area of the Grace leaking past the edges of Sam's shirt. "Say bye to my h-healing abilities. I'm dead, Sam, you j-just won't let me go."
Sam desperately wishes Castiel was here, because he'd probably have some sort of advice.
"You shouldn't have come b-back," Gabriel scowls as Sam picks him up, cradling him and trying not to aggravate his wound. "I t-told you to get outta here. Y-you're lucky I'm not gonna be around much longer, or I'd show you an old-f-fashioned smiting for d-disobedience."
"Yeah, yeah, okay. You can smite my ass from here to Washington later," Sam agrees, weaving his way back out past the gory remains of the gods Lucifer had destroyed so easily. His shirt is now solidly red, and light's still peeking around it.
"God almighty," Dean spits when Sam emerges into the cold April night. Out here it's even more apparent how bad it is--Gabriel's lighting him up like a spotlight. There's a searing sensation on Sam's arms and side that he tries really hard not to think about, because if wings were slowly burning away, he imagines that's what it might feel like.
They stitch Gabriel up right there on the hood of the car, treat him like he's a human because they have no idea what to do for an angel. He rolls his eyes blindly and growls at them while Dean pulls the surgical thread through his skin, closing the wound. Grace seeps through the stitches, but it's considerably less than before.
Gabriel loses consciousness before they even hit the border of Illinois, and for a minute Sam's sure he's dead. But no, there's still a faint glow lighting up the gauze they'd wrapped around his middle, and his bare chest is still rising and falling shallowly.
Dean glances into the rearview mirror and then flicks his eyes back to the road. "Jesus," he breathes again, and Sam thinks he agrees.
--
By the time they remember the DVD Gabriel had pressed into Dean's hands, the archangel seems to be stabilizing. He's still comatose, like he's been since they'd left Indiana, but he seems less pale. The glow from underneath his bandages has lessened, but his breathing is more steady, so Sam's hoping that's a positive, that it means Gabriel is healing.
Dean pops it into the DVD player and starts it up. It's eerie, watching Gabriel so full of life and obviously ready to throw it away.
If you're watching this, I'm dead, Gabriel tells them from the television. Sam can't help but glance at the archangel, looking small and frail as he sprawls across the motel room bed, and think not yet, not yet.