The Only Place That You've Left to Go (Sam/Gabriel)
Title: The Only Place That You've Left to Go
Pairing: Sam/Gabriel, possible/vaguely implied past Lucifer/Gabriel (I'll leave it up to the reader).
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mild/moderate AU concerning the archangel Gabriel (nothing from 6.01 has changed) and serious, doesn't-have-a-happy-ending-in-sight angst.
Spoilers: major 5.19, minor and major 5.22, minor 6.01. Takes place from right after the end of 5.19 to the end of 5.22.
Word Count: 1327
Disclaimer: Supernatural and all characters therein are the property of Eric Kripke and the WB/CW, I'm just borrowing them for my own nefarious purposes.
Summary: Lovers are reunited after the events of 5.19 and 5.22, but there's something different about Sam.
Author's Note: A possible explanation of how Sam ended up the way he was in 6.01. Although I initially agreed with them, the more I think about it, the more sad I am that people are bashing on him so hard, given everything he's been through. This is my attempt to create a little sympathy for Sammy.
- When terribly sad longtime favorite songs get stuck in my head - in this case, Fuel's "Hemorrhage (In My Hands)" - they put a nasty cramp in my style and keep me from finishing mostly-complete schmoop bingo chapters. If you choose to read it, know in advance that it will put the hurt on you in a rather serious way - I blinked back tears more than once when I was writing it, which is a first for me. I hope you give it a chance, anyways, despite the fact that it's far from my best work and rather ouchy.
- according to canon, the archangel Gabriel is the angel of resurrection, judgment, and annunciation, among many other things.
What did you expect to find?
Was it something you left behind?
Don't you remember anything I said, when I said...
When Lucifer drove the Sword through his heart, Gabriel didn't die in the traditional human sense of the word, or even the traditional angelic sense of the word.
An angel's grace is a combination of pure energy and divine Love; when they pass away, it breaks apart, spreading across the cosmos in infinitesimally tiny pieces. What made Gabriel's special - a perk of being the angel of Resurrection - was that each shred of his grace retained a little bit of him, so every single one of them memories, experiences, personality quirks and emotions that made him who he was still existed, along with the divinity that bound them all together to create a conscious being.
If Gabriel could gather the tatters of his essence and unite them into a complete whole, he would be restored to his full, living glory with all his former powers. He reached out from the largest piece of grace, calling out to his scattered soul, and finding little comfort in the lilting song of its reply. Gabriel was spread all across the Universe, and he wasn't in shiny, beacon-like pieces floating conveniently in nebulae. Scraps of his grace were hidden away in the hearts of quasars, the metallic hydrogen of gas giants, on the edges of gravitational lenses and in the depths of Europa's ice; everywhere imaginable from Earth to the furthest reaches of a vast, ever-expanding cosmos.
Without a thought for the relative impossibility of the task, Gabriel set off in the direction of the Andromeda Galaxy, where the piece of him containing a favorite memory of his brothers before the Fall sparkled in the distance.
He needed to find every bit of his grace, and fast. Time was running out.
------------------------
Gabriel arrived at Stull's Cemetery six hours too late.
With shaking fingers, the archangel touched the ground where the Cage had opened up to swallow his brothers and their vessels.
Oh, Sammy, what have you done?
------------------------
A week later, the impossible happened again: Gabriel felt the unmistakable presence of Sam Winchester. It barely had the strength to stand out above the background noise of six billion souls, but it was there, and even more remarkably, Gabriel didn't detect the radiant flare created by the merging of Vessel and grace within it - it seemed that somehow, Sam had managed to break free of Lucifer. Gabriel didn't know of a force in Creation powerful enough to wrench an archangel free of his true Vessel, save for his Father Himself, but stranger things had been known to happen in Heaven and Earth (and the Pit) on occasion.
He found Sam just as night fell, lying still in a field with rain pouring down from the sky above him. From the way Sam was positioned, naked limbs splayed like a pile of broken twigs, Gabriel could tell something was wrong.
At the sound of footsteps, Sam raised his head, hope kindling in his glassy eyes when he caught sight of his lover.
Sam reached out towards Gabriel, as if to reassure himself that the archangel was real, and not a figment of his tortured mind. Hardening his resolve against the affection in Sam's blue-hazel gaze, Gabriel reminded himself of broken oaths and the lasting effects of Lucifer's presence on any mortal who fell under his power.
Gabriel recoiled from Sam's outstretched hand, his tone dangerously flat.
"You said yes. After convincing me that you never would, after promising, you said yes."
Sam struggled to his feet, the light in his eyes eclipsed by confusion. He still looked like himself, every bit as long and lean and gorgeous as he'd ever been, skin unmarked by his time in Hell, but as he stood, a shape rose up behind him; the ghost of twelve wings and an impossibly beautiful, powerful form that shimmered silver in the deepening twilight. His soul, once a pure, clear amber marred slightly by demon blood, was overshadowed by a brilliant blue-white scar that shifted and blazed with the glory of a hundred suns - the signature of Lucifer's grace.
"What was I supposed to do, Gabriel? After you were gone it was our only hope, and I couldn't stand by and let the world end. I had to try. I took on Lucifer and stopped the Apocalypse, and I did it without killing either of your brothers."
The archangel of judgment levelled his eyes at Sam.
"That's not all that happened. I can see remnants of his grace clinging to your soul - in order for that echo of Lucifer to remain, you had to have spilled innocent blood by your own choice while serving as his vessel."
"But I ---"
"When you killed with him inside you, that was more than just a little mistake. It was a ritual, Sam, a sacrifice that bound him to you in ways more permanent than you can possibly comprehend."
"Gabriel," Sam said with a pleading edge to his voice,"I barely won that battle against Lucifer. I had an archangel in my head for fifteen hours, and I spent every second of it but one fighting him; that single mistake cost those people their lives. I didn't get control back until right before I jumped into the Pit, which, by the way, I did without any hope of ever getting out again. I did the best I could, and by some miracle, I'm here, now, and you're here with me."
Gabriel bit the inside of his lip as Sam advanced, drawing so close Gabriel could feel the heat of Sam's body against his skin.
"Please don't be angry," Sam murmured, lowering his voice to a whisper as his breath danced over Gabriel's cheekbone, "I've missed you so much."
Hazel eyes flickered over Gabriel's face before Sam's head inclined to close the distance between them.
Sam's mouth was as perfect as he remembered, so warm and pliant and hungry Gabriel couldn't help the gasp that spilled from his throat, parting his lips in an unconscious invitation. At the slide of Sam's tongue against his, the lust surging to life in Gabriel's chest turned cold as the dark, rich power of Lucifer's grace rose to the surface and reached for his own. Gabriel shoved Sam away with preternatural speed, but the brief contact with his brother's essence had already shaken Gabriel to the core of his grace. He saw Lucifer's true form behind his eyes, burned into his mind like the after-image of a supernova; felt the heady, intoxicating burn of the other archangel in his mouth, filling him with longing fierce enough to leave his heart raw.
The sound of a broken sob interrupted the gentle rhythm of the rain as the rejection shattered Sam's hope.
Gabriel fought the temptation to wrap his arms around the man he loved and comfort him, taking a deep breath he didn't need before he spoke.
"I can't do this, Sammy. Not when I feel Lucifer every time I touch you."
He paused, turning his head to hide the tear coursing down his cheek.
"I have to go."
"No," Sam said, desperation shining alongside the tears in his eyes, "no, Gabriel, please don't leave me. I..." love you, need you, "I don't have anyone or anywhere to go; without you, I'm alone."
With a soft, sad smile, Gabriel snapped his fingers, and the world in front of Sam's eyes went black. When the darkness melted away, Sam found himself clothed and dry, standing before a familiar house in Cicero underneath a flickering streetlamp.
The blinds were open, the warm light inside illuminating the dining room where Dean was sitting down to dinner with Ben and Lisa Braeden. The scene was charmingly domestic - to an outsider, the three of them would have looked like a proper family - and the lie of it settled deep in Sam's gut to gnaw away at him, making his heart a little more hollow.
As he watched his brother ruffle Ben's hair, so much like the gentle touslings Dean had greeted Sam with when they were younger, Sam heard Gabriel's voice in his ear, bitter and sweet as a kiss goodbye,
"No, you're not."
Pairing: Sam/Gabriel, possible/vaguely implied past Lucifer/Gabriel (I'll leave it up to the reader).
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mild/moderate AU concerning the archangel Gabriel (nothing from 6.01 has changed) and serious, doesn't-have-a-happy-ending-in-sight angst.
Spoilers: major 5.19, minor and major 5.22, minor 6.01. Takes place from right after the end of 5.19 to the end of 5.22.
Word Count: 1327
Disclaimer: Supernatural and all characters therein are the property of Eric Kripke and the WB/CW, I'm just borrowing them for my own nefarious purposes.
Summary: Lovers are reunited after the events of 5.19 and 5.22, but there's something different about Sam.
Author's Note: A possible explanation of how Sam ended up the way he was in 6.01. Although I initially agreed with them, the more I think about it, the more sad I am that people are bashing on him so hard, given everything he's been through. This is my attempt to create a little sympathy for Sammy.
- When terribly sad longtime favorite songs get stuck in my head - in this case, Fuel's "Hemorrhage (In My Hands)" - they put a nasty cramp in my style and keep me from finishing mostly-complete schmoop bingo chapters. If you choose to read it, know in advance that it will put the hurt on you in a rather serious way - I blinked back tears more than once when I was writing it, which is a first for me. I hope you give it a chance, anyways, despite the fact that it's far from my best work and rather ouchy.
- according to canon, the archangel Gabriel is the angel of resurrection, judgment, and annunciation, among many other things.
What did you expect to find?
Was it something you left behind?
Don't you remember anything I said, when I said...
When Lucifer drove the Sword through his heart, Gabriel didn't die in the traditional human sense of the word, or even the traditional angelic sense of the word.
An angel's grace is a combination of pure energy and divine Love; when they pass away, it breaks apart, spreading across the cosmos in infinitesimally tiny pieces. What made Gabriel's special - a perk of being the angel of Resurrection - was that each shred of his grace retained a little bit of him, so every single one of them memories, experiences, personality quirks and emotions that made him who he was still existed, along with the divinity that bound them all together to create a conscious being.
If Gabriel could gather the tatters of his essence and unite them into a complete whole, he would be restored to his full, living glory with all his former powers. He reached out from the largest piece of grace, calling out to his scattered soul, and finding little comfort in the lilting song of its reply. Gabriel was spread all across the Universe, and he wasn't in shiny, beacon-like pieces floating conveniently in nebulae. Scraps of his grace were hidden away in the hearts of quasars, the metallic hydrogen of gas giants, on the edges of gravitational lenses and in the depths of Europa's ice; everywhere imaginable from Earth to the furthest reaches of a vast, ever-expanding cosmos.
Without a thought for the relative impossibility of the task, Gabriel set off in the direction of the Andromeda Galaxy, where the piece of him containing a favorite memory of his brothers before the Fall sparkled in the distance.
He needed to find every bit of his grace, and fast. Time was running out.
------------------------
Gabriel arrived at Stull's Cemetery six hours too late.
With shaking fingers, the archangel touched the ground where the Cage had opened up to swallow his brothers and their vessels.
Oh, Sammy, what have you done?
------------------------
A week later, the impossible happened again: Gabriel felt the unmistakable presence of Sam Winchester. It barely had the strength to stand out above the background noise of six billion souls, but it was there, and even more remarkably, Gabriel didn't detect the radiant flare created by the merging of Vessel and grace within it - it seemed that somehow, Sam had managed to break free of Lucifer. Gabriel didn't know of a force in Creation powerful enough to wrench an archangel free of his true Vessel, save for his Father Himself, but stranger things had been known to happen in Heaven and Earth (and the Pit) on occasion.
He found Sam just as night fell, lying still in a field with rain pouring down from the sky above him. From the way Sam was positioned, naked limbs splayed like a pile of broken twigs, Gabriel could tell something was wrong.
At the sound of footsteps, Sam raised his head, hope kindling in his glassy eyes when he caught sight of his lover.
Sam reached out towards Gabriel, as if to reassure himself that the archangel was real, and not a figment of his tortured mind. Hardening his resolve against the affection in Sam's blue-hazel gaze, Gabriel reminded himself of broken oaths and the lasting effects of Lucifer's presence on any mortal who fell under his power.
Gabriel recoiled from Sam's outstretched hand, his tone dangerously flat.
"You said yes. After convincing me that you never would, after promising, you said yes."
Sam struggled to his feet, the light in his eyes eclipsed by confusion. He still looked like himself, every bit as long and lean and gorgeous as he'd ever been, skin unmarked by his time in Hell, but as he stood, a shape rose up behind him; the ghost of twelve wings and an impossibly beautiful, powerful form that shimmered silver in the deepening twilight. His soul, once a pure, clear amber marred slightly by demon blood, was overshadowed by a brilliant blue-white scar that shifted and blazed with the glory of a hundred suns - the signature of Lucifer's grace.
"What was I supposed to do, Gabriel? After you were gone it was our only hope, and I couldn't stand by and let the world end. I had to try. I took on Lucifer and stopped the Apocalypse, and I did it without killing either of your brothers."
The archangel of judgment levelled his eyes at Sam.
"That's not all that happened. I can see remnants of his grace clinging to your soul - in order for that echo of Lucifer to remain, you had to have spilled innocent blood by your own choice while serving as his vessel."
"But I ---"
"When you killed with him inside you, that was more than just a little mistake. It was a ritual, Sam, a sacrifice that bound him to you in ways more permanent than you can possibly comprehend."
"Gabriel," Sam said with a pleading edge to his voice,"I barely won that battle against Lucifer. I had an archangel in my head for fifteen hours, and I spent every second of it but one fighting him; that single mistake cost those people their lives. I didn't get control back until right before I jumped into the Pit, which, by the way, I did without any hope of ever getting out again. I did the best I could, and by some miracle, I'm here, now, and you're here with me."
Gabriel bit the inside of his lip as Sam advanced, drawing so close Gabriel could feel the heat of Sam's body against his skin.
"Please don't be angry," Sam murmured, lowering his voice to a whisper as his breath danced over Gabriel's cheekbone, "I've missed you so much."
Hazel eyes flickered over Gabriel's face before Sam's head inclined to close the distance between them.
Sam's mouth was as perfect as he remembered, so warm and pliant and hungry Gabriel couldn't help the gasp that spilled from his throat, parting his lips in an unconscious invitation. At the slide of Sam's tongue against his, the lust surging to life in Gabriel's chest turned cold as the dark, rich power of Lucifer's grace rose to the surface and reached for his own. Gabriel shoved Sam away with preternatural speed, but the brief contact with his brother's essence had already shaken Gabriel to the core of his grace. He saw Lucifer's true form behind his eyes, burned into his mind like the after-image of a supernova; felt the heady, intoxicating burn of the other archangel in his mouth, filling him with longing fierce enough to leave his heart raw.
The sound of a broken sob interrupted the gentle rhythm of the rain as the rejection shattered Sam's hope.
Gabriel fought the temptation to wrap his arms around the man he loved and comfort him, taking a deep breath he didn't need before he spoke.
"I can't do this, Sammy. Not when I feel Lucifer every time I touch you."
He paused, turning his head to hide the tear coursing down his cheek.
"I have to go."
"No," Sam said, desperation shining alongside the tears in his eyes, "no, Gabriel, please don't leave me. I..." love you, need you, "I don't have anyone or anywhere to go; without you, I'm alone."
With a soft, sad smile, Gabriel snapped his fingers, and the world in front of Sam's eyes went black. When the darkness melted away, Sam found himself clothed and dry, standing before a familiar house in Cicero underneath a flickering streetlamp.
The blinds were open, the warm light inside illuminating the dining room where Dean was sitting down to dinner with Ben and Lisa Braeden. The scene was charmingly domestic - to an outsider, the three of them would have looked like a proper family - and the lie of it settled deep in Sam's gut to gnaw away at him, making his heart a little more hollow.
As he watched his brother ruffle Ben's hair, so much like the gentle touslings Dean had greeted Sam with when they were younger, Sam heard Gabriel's voice in his ear, bitter and sweet as a kiss goodbye,
"No, you're not."