Superman Tonight (17/?)
Title: Superman Tonight (17/?)
Author: lonelyphoenix85
Rating: R overall, mainly for the odd swear-word
Genre: Pre-slash, angst, hurt/comfort
Pairing: Sam/Gabriel pre-slash, Dean/Cas pre-slash, Aziraphale/Crowley slash
Spoilers: through to Changing Channels (5x08)
Warnings: None
Word Count: 2396 (this part, 37248 total so far)
Disclaimer: It only belongs to me when I'm dreaming! Bon Jovi owns the song, and the rest is property of the almighty Kripke!
Author's Note: Just wanted to say thanks to my fantastic beta for this story, of_red_clouds - you're awesome!
Another Note: Huge huge huge apologies to my readers for taking so long to get this up, but RL took over there for a while! Hopefully the next chapter won't take half as long to get up *grins*
Previous Chapters: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16
And now:
The first thing Sam noticed when he opened his eyes was the crystal clear blue sky above him. A quick check assured him that although he was indeed led on the ground in an as yet unknown location, he didn’t appear to be in any immediate danger.
Sam rolled slowly to the side and braced his hands on the ground before pushing to quickly rise to his feet.
There were trees on all sides, and not just any old trees either - trees that would make centuries-old redwoods pale into insignificance. They towered over Sam, and if the clearing he was in had been any smaller he’d have probably felt uncomfortably closed in by them.
On the opposite end of the glade was a small lake (large pool? It was that awkward size where you never knew quite what to call it, Sam mused distractedly to himself), and near the edge a figure huddled.
*Gabriel.*
As he began to make his way over towards the prone Archangel, Sam wondered where they were. Normally if he wasn’t having a nightmare his dreamscape was the cabin - he’d never imagined anywhere this tranquil, this beautiful…it was almost idyllic.
He knelt down as he reached Gabriel, his hand resting lightly on the Archangel’s shoulder and pulling with just enough force to roll him onto his back. Gabriel’s eyes were closed, his lips parted slightly. If they weren’t already in a dream, Sam would think he was sleeping.
Worry filled the hunter, and he wondered if perhaps Gabriel had misjudged again, like with the chair…miscalculated and over-stretched himself, undone whatever healing the new angel - *Aziraphale,* he reminded himself - had done.
“You,” Gabriel murmured without any noticeable movement at all besides the slight shift of his jaw, the faint twitch of his lips… “Worry far too much, Sasquatch.”
The Archangel’s eyes snapped open, hazel meeting brown as Sam leaned over the still figure.
“Relax.”
Even as Gabriel spoke Sam felt a hand on his arm, and found himself suddenly sprawled on his back on the ground, his head beside Gabriel’s. Deciding that it was probably easier to just go with it, Sam sighed and stared at the sky, wondering what exactly he was supposed to be doing.
“I could hear you thinking a mile away…”
“Not many people could say that and mean it so literally,” Sam interrupted with a grin, glancing to the side to see Gabriel grinning back at him.
“Not many people are this awesome kiddo!”
Sam was quiet for a moment before breaking the unexpectedly comfortable silence.
“Not thinking…it’s easier said than done - especially with everything that’s going on these days.”
“That’s even more reason to give it a shot - you don’t learn to switch that grey matter off occasionally, you’ll end up madder than a March hare.”
“A March…? You know what - nevermind. Where are we anyway?” Sam asked, deciding that a change of topic was probably a good plan.
“Led on the ground staring at the sky…you didn’t hit your head did you Sammy?”
Gabriel’s tone was wrong. It wasn’t anything big, but Sam could feel it. There was no smirk in the angel’s voice - the humour in the words was forced.
He sounded like he had when they’d confronted him in the ring of holy fire - almost desperate to avoid the coming conversation, but with an edge that told of how hopeless an effort he knew it was.
Sam stared at the sky silently, waiting to see if Gabriel would say anything else. He knew that Gabriel knew he was waiting - the archangel had had no concept of privacy as far as Sam’s thoughts were concerned thus far, and there was no reason for that to change now. That he hadn’t said anything else to change the topic told Sam all he needed to know. Something about this place bothered Gabriel, and if Sam waited quietly perhaps Gabriel would tell him what that something was.
*Then again, maybe he’s just waiting for me to get bored,* Sam thought after a few minutes of silence.
He heard Gabriel snort softly next to him, confirming his suspicion that the Archangel had been listening to his thoughts.
“S’kinda hard not too at the moment kid - you think so loud in general, but now this…the Bond deal…I don’t think I could shut you out if I wanted to right now…and I don’t really want to - it’s been a long time since I’ve had anything close to this.”
The last few words were spoken softly, in a voice so filled with pain that Sam looked over at Gabriel again, knowing the grin would be absent now.
The angel was staring straight up again, and Sam’s heart clenched at the expression on his face. His face was equal parts loneliness, longing, sorrow, and regret, his hazel eyes unfocussed - looking at but not seeing the cloudless sky above him.
SPNSPNSPN
When he opened his eyes, Gabriel needed barely a second to realise where his mind had placed them.
He considered forcing a change of scenery but decided it was not worth the energy it would take. Instead he focused for a second, and felt the memory freeze around him - he could hear Sam stirring not far from him but everything else became still, and knowing he could keep it that way for a while at least, Gabriel curled back up on his side and closed his eyes against the memory and the thoughts it brought forth.
Sam would come to check on him soon, and he would have to face the Garden then, but he had a few moments to pull himself together first.
There were far worse memories they could’ve ended up in, it was true - Gabriel had been involved in some of the nastiest parts of history, both human and demonic, and that they weren’t in the midst of one of those confrontations was a blessing - but a small part of Gabriel would have preferred the simplicity of being stuck in a nightmare.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and allowed himself to be rolled onto his back. The pulse of worry from the hunter warmed him, even as it tried to overtake him too - this sharing of emotions would take some getting used to. He wondered if Sam, as a human, would be able to experience that side of the Bond at all.
“You,” Gabriel murmured, “worry far too much, Sasquatch.”
He opened his eyes to see Sam’s soft brown ones staring down at him, worry becoming tinged slightly with exasperation as he realized that Gabriel wasn’t injured again.
“Relax.”
Gabriel reached for Sam’s arm - which was still attached at the hand to Gabriel’s shoulder, he noted with interest - as he spoke, and tugged quickly, pulling the hunter over him to land on the (quickly cushioned with a thought) ground to Gabriel’s left.
Gabriel grinned as the human sighed softly, and decided a little mindless conversation was in order. It had seemed like a good plan until Sam had asked where they were.
“Led on the ground staring at the sky…you didn’t hit your head did you Sammy?”
He wasn’t dodging the question, not really - just liberally interpreting Sam’s meaning.
When he got no reply Gabriel glanced at the hunter. Sam was staring quietly at the blue sky above them, thoughts still as he waited patiently for a real answer to his question.
*Well shit.*
He debated silently whether it would be easier to bombard the hunter with conversation or wait him out - after all, Winchesters weren’t generally patient creatures, were they?
**Then again, maybe he’s just waiting for me to get bored.**
Gabriel snorted softly at the thought that suddenly appeared in his overgrown human’s head, and as the hunter realised Gabriel was eavesdropping on his thoughts, he decided that perhaps Sam could be distracted from their location after all - with a change of topic that he wouldn’t ignore…
“S’kinda hard not too at the moment kid - you think so loud in general, but now this…the Bond deal…I don’t think I could shut you out if I wanted to right now…and I don’t really want to - it’s been a long time since I’ve had anything close to this.”
Gabriel waited for Sam to take the bait, to start asking questions about the aspects of the Bond he hadn’t gotten around to explaining yet.
“I heard you…”
Sam’s words were barely a murmur, but Gabriel heard them…heard the cautious sense of wonder in them.
“Didn’t I? In the car, when you were at Bobby’s…it’s what made me make Dean stop, what made me run. I didn’t even question it, and then everything got so crazy I forgot…”
What had been supposed to be a distraction was fast getting interesting, and Gabriel looked at Sam curiously.
“Anytime you want to start making sense, that would be awesome Sammy…what in Dad’s name’re you talking about?”
“You were hurt - your side, then your shoulder - I felt like I..like you were dying Gabe. And then all of a sudden I couldn’t feel anything, it just shut down, and the only reason I didn’t think you were dead was because I heard you just before it happened - I heard you curse, and I heard you apologise to Cas, and I knew I had to get as far away from him as I could before you did whatever you were apologising for.”
Gabriel didn’t know where to start. What Sam’s words were implying…a smile began to form as he realised what the hunter’s words might mean.
When he’d first realised he’d Bonded with the hunter, he hadn’t known what to expect. That the Bond would always be uneven was a given - the human body simply wasn’t designed to cope with the level of power, the sheer volume of memories and thoughts that were part and parcel of being an Archangel, so while Gabriel could feel his connection to the hunter’s thoughts…to his state of mind and his emotions…growing slowly, he knew that it was unlikely that Sam would be able to experience the same.
What Sam was saying proved his assumptions wrong. Sam had heard him, had felt his pain, his intentions…
Sam had heard him, had felt his pain.
Gabriel sat up, the memory surrounding them barely registering as he twisted to look at his hunter.
Sam had been a barely coherent, barely conscious mess when he’d arrived at Bobby’s with Dean.
Gabriel’s blood ran cold - a human saying he’d never fully understood until that second, but saying he was afraid felt like an understatement, whereas that…that fit. His blood ran cold and the smile that had been forming disappeared, leaving an expressionless mask behind.
Sam’s words ran through his head again, and he frowned at the point where Sam had caught himself, corrected his wording - the hunter hadn’t simply known he was injured, he’d felt the injuries as though they were his own. That wasn’t how a Bond was supposed to work. Emotions, yeah, those could get easily confused…but thoughts, physical sensation - Bond-mates were supposed to have an awareness of these things in each other, but no more than that.
That Sam said the pain had disappeared after he’d apologised was small consolation. It had disappeared when he retreated from the Bond, but Sam had arrived in a mess, which meant something else happened after that. He thought he knew, but he needed to be certain…
“Sam, you said you ran after you heard me?”
Sam pushed himself up to sit, mimicking Gabriel’s position by folding his legs in front of him in, and nodded.
“What happened after you ran? Because I’m guessing if you ran, you weren’t in the state you arrived at Bobby’s in, right? And don’t down-play anything Sammy - you have no idea how important this is.”
“I got a few hundred feet from the car when something hit me - I don’t know how to…it was worse than being hurled into a concrete wall by a demon, like fire burning through every cell of my body… The whole world went white, and the next thing I knew Dean was there…”
*Well shit.*
Gabriel could feel Sam’s memories of what he’d felt as the kid tried to describe it, and the hunter’s description didn’t even come close. Oh, he wasn’t trying to down-play it - he’d listened to Gabriel’s warning - he just didn’t have the words to properly describe it.
He’d felt the full force of Gabriel’s grace hitting him. Despite Gabriel blocking off the Bond. Despite the distance between them.
In fact, those two things were the only reason it hadn’t killed the hunter outright. His containing it again so quickly to protect Castiel was the only reason it hadn’t destroyed his Bond-mate after the fact, weakened as he was by the sudden onslaught.
“Gabriel…?”
He focussed on Sam’s face and realised that his hunter was waiting patiently for an explanation. He thought about sugar-coating it (because everything was better with sugar, he thought weakly), but then remembered his promise to keep his human fully in the loop as far as the Bond went.
“My Grace…” he whispered softly.
At Sam’s questioning look, he continued.
“What you felt - it was my Grace. It was me lashing out to kill Zachariah…I didn’t realise Sammy - I had no idea the Bond was that strong on your side…if I had…Shit, kiddo! I nearly killed you dealing with that hell-bound, polluted, poisonous sonuvabitch!”
He’d never intended to take a Bond-mate, not even before the first war. The depth of connection he’d seen in others - it had terrified him. After the war…
He had seen what losing Lucifer had done to Michael. Everyone had. How it had broken him, left him less…a shadow of himself with a darkness festering where his Bond had once shone with Lucifer’s grace. No-one had Bonded after that, not before Gabriel left Heaven, and he doubted anyone had since.
That he had almost killed his Bond-mate…he couldn’t process it, couldn’t imagine what would have come next. Couldn’t imagine anything being next, ever again.
A mortal death would send Sam to Heaven which, while not somewhere Gabriel had ever planned to go again, was bearable at least. Obliteration by Archangelic Grace was not a mortal death. It was oblivion - no Heaven, no Hell, no Purgatory or wandering the Earth…it was absolute nothingness.
And he’d almost done that to Sam.
Chapter 18...
Author: lonelyphoenix85
Rating: R overall, mainly for the odd swear-word
Genre: Pre-slash, angst, hurt/comfort
Pairing: Sam/Gabriel pre-slash, Dean/Cas pre-slash, Aziraphale/Crowley slash
Spoilers: through to Changing Channels (5x08)
Warnings: None
Word Count: 2396 (this part, 37248 total so far)
Disclaimer: It only belongs to me when I'm dreaming! Bon Jovi owns the song, and the rest is property of the almighty Kripke!
Author's Note: Just wanted to say thanks to my fantastic beta for this story, of_red_clouds - you're awesome!
Another Note: Huge huge huge apologies to my readers for taking so long to get this up, but RL took over there for a while! Hopefully the next chapter won't take half as long to get up *grins*
Previous Chapters: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16
And now:
The first thing Sam noticed when he opened his eyes was the crystal clear blue sky above him. A quick check assured him that although he was indeed led on the ground in an as yet unknown location, he didn’t appear to be in any immediate danger.
Sam rolled slowly to the side and braced his hands on the ground before pushing to quickly rise to his feet.
There were trees on all sides, and not just any old trees either - trees that would make centuries-old redwoods pale into insignificance. They towered over Sam, and if the clearing he was in had been any smaller he’d have probably felt uncomfortably closed in by them.
On the opposite end of the glade was a small lake (large pool? It was that awkward size where you never knew quite what to call it, Sam mused distractedly to himself), and near the edge a figure huddled.
*Gabriel.*
As he began to make his way over towards the prone Archangel, Sam wondered where they were. Normally if he wasn’t having a nightmare his dreamscape was the cabin - he’d never imagined anywhere this tranquil, this beautiful…it was almost idyllic.
He knelt down as he reached Gabriel, his hand resting lightly on the Archangel’s shoulder and pulling with just enough force to roll him onto his back. Gabriel’s eyes were closed, his lips parted slightly. If they weren’t already in a dream, Sam would think he was sleeping.
Worry filled the hunter, and he wondered if perhaps Gabriel had misjudged again, like with the chair…miscalculated and over-stretched himself, undone whatever healing the new angel - *Aziraphale,* he reminded himself - had done.
“You,” Gabriel murmured without any noticeable movement at all besides the slight shift of his jaw, the faint twitch of his lips… “Worry far too much, Sasquatch.”
The Archangel’s eyes snapped open, hazel meeting brown as Sam leaned over the still figure.
“Relax.”
Even as Gabriel spoke Sam felt a hand on his arm, and found himself suddenly sprawled on his back on the ground, his head beside Gabriel’s. Deciding that it was probably easier to just go with it, Sam sighed and stared at the sky, wondering what exactly he was supposed to be doing.
“I could hear you thinking a mile away…”
“Not many people could say that and mean it so literally,” Sam interrupted with a grin, glancing to the side to see Gabriel grinning back at him.
“Not many people are this awesome kiddo!”
Sam was quiet for a moment before breaking the unexpectedly comfortable silence.
“Not thinking…it’s easier said than done - especially with everything that’s going on these days.”
“That’s even more reason to give it a shot - you don’t learn to switch that grey matter off occasionally, you’ll end up madder than a March hare.”
“A March…? You know what - nevermind. Where are we anyway?” Sam asked, deciding that a change of topic was probably a good plan.
“Led on the ground staring at the sky…you didn’t hit your head did you Sammy?”
Gabriel’s tone was wrong. It wasn’t anything big, but Sam could feel it. There was no smirk in the angel’s voice - the humour in the words was forced.
He sounded like he had when they’d confronted him in the ring of holy fire - almost desperate to avoid the coming conversation, but with an edge that told of how hopeless an effort he knew it was.
Sam stared at the sky silently, waiting to see if Gabriel would say anything else. He knew that Gabriel knew he was waiting - the archangel had had no concept of privacy as far as Sam’s thoughts were concerned thus far, and there was no reason for that to change now. That he hadn’t said anything else to change the topic told Sam all he needed to know. Something about this place bothered Gabriel, and if Sam waited quietly perhaps Gabriel would tell him what that something was.
*Then again, maybe he’s just waiting for me to get bored,* Sam thought after a few minutes of silence.
He heard Gabriel snort softly next to him, confirming his suspicion that the Archangel had been listening to his thoughts.
“S’kinda hard not too at the moment kid - you think so loud in general, but now this…the Bond deal…I don’t think I could shut you out if I wanted to right now…and I don’t really want to - it’s been a long time since I’ve had anything close to this.”
The last few words were spoken softly, in a voice so filled with pain that Sam looked over at Gabriel again, knowing the grin would be absent now.
The angel was staring straight up again, and Sam’s heart clenched at the expression on his face. His face was equal parts loneliness, longing, sorrow, and regret, his hazel eyes unfocussed - looking at but not seeing the cloudless sky above him.
SPNSPNSPN
When he opened his eyes, Gabriel needed barely a second to realise where his mind had placed them.
He considered forcing a change of scenery but decided it was not worth the energy it would take. Instead he focused for a second, and felt the memory freeze around him - he could hear Sam stirring not far from him but everything else became still, and knowing he could keep it that way for a while at least, Gabriel curled back up on his side and closed his eyes against the memory and the thoughts it brought forth.
Sam would come to check on him soon, and he would have to face the Garden then, but he had a few moments to pull himself together first.
There were far worse memories they could’ve ended up in, it was true - Gabriel had been involved in some of the nastiest parts of history, both human and demonic, and that they weren’t in the midst of one of those confrontations was a blessing - but a small part of Gabriel would have preferred the simplicity of being stuck in a nightmare.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and allowed himself to be rolled onto his back. The pulse of worry from the hunter warmed him, even as it tried to overtake him too - this sharing of emotions would take some getting used to. He wondered if Sam, as a human, would be able to experience that side of the Bond at all.
“You,” Gabriel murmured, “worry far too much, Sasquatch.”
He opened his eyes to see Sam’s soft brown ones staring down at him, worry becoming tinged slightly with exasperation as he realized that Gabriel wasn’t injured again.
“Relax.”
Gabriel reached for Sam’s arm - which was still attached at the hand to Gabriel’s shoulder, he noted with interest - as he spoke, and tugged quickly, pulling the hunter over him to land on the (quickly cushioned with a thought) ground to Gabriel’s left.
Gabriel grinned as the human sighed softly, and decided a little mindless conversation was in order. It had seemed like a good plan until Sam had asked where they were.
“Led on the ground staring at the sky…you didn’t hit your head did you Sammy?”
He wasn’t dodging the question, not really - just liberally interpreting Sam’s meaning.
When he got no reply Gabriel glanced at the hunter. Sam was staring quietly at the blue sky above them, thoughts still as he waited patiently for a real answer to his question.
*Well shit.*
He debated silently whether it would be easier to bombard the hunter with conversation or wait him out - after all, Winchesters weren’t generally patient creatures, were they?
**Then again, maybe he’s just waiting for me to get bored.**
Gabriel snorted softly at the thought that suddenly appeared in his overgrown human’s head, and as the hunter realised Gabriel was eavesdropping on his thoughts, he decided that perhaps Sam could be distracted from their location after all - with a change of topic that he wouldn’t ignore…
“S’kinda hard not too at the moment kid - you think so loud in general, but now this…the Bond deal…I don’t think I could shut you out if I wanted to right now…and I don’t really want to - it’s been a long time since I’ve had anything close to this.”
Gabriel waited for Sam to take the bait, to start asking questions about the aspects of the Bond he hadn’t gotten around to explaining yet.
“I heard you…”
Sam’s words were barely a murmur, but Gabriel heard them…heard the cautious sense of wonder in them.
“Didn’t I? In the car, when you were at Bobby’s…it’s what made me make Dean stop, what made me run. I didn’t even question it, and then everything got so crazy I forgot…”
What had been supposed to be a distraction was fast getting interesting, and Gabriel looked at Sam curiously.
“Anytime you want to start making sense, that would be awesome Sammy…what in Dad’s name’re you talking about?”
“You were hurt - your side, then your shoulder - I felt like I..like you were dying Gabe. And then all of a sudden I couldn’t feel anything, it just shut down, and the only reason I didn’t think you were dead was because I heard you just before it happened - I heard you curse, and I heard you apologise to Cas, and I knew I had to get as far away from him as I could before you did whatever you were apologising for.”
Gabriel didn’t know where to start. What Sam’s words were implying…a smile began to form as he realised what the hunter’s words might mean.
When he’d first realised he’d Bonded with the hunter, he hadn’t known what to expect. That the Bond would always be uneven was a given - the human body simply wasn’t designed to cope with the level of power, the sheer volume of memories and thoughts that were part and parcel of being an Archangel, so while Gabriel could feel his connection to the hunter’s thoughts…to his state of mind and his emotions…growing slowly, he knew that it was unlikely that Sam would be able to experience the same.
What Sam was saying proved his assumptions wrong. Sam had heard him, had felt his pain, his intentions…
Sam had heard him, had felt his pain.
Gabriel sat up, the memory surrounding them barely registering as he twisted to look at his hunter.
Sam had been a barely coherent, barely conscious mess when he’d arrived at Bobby’s with Dean.
Gabriel’s blood ran cold - a human saying he’d never fully understood until that second, but saying he was afraid felt like an understatement, whereas that…that fit. His blood ran cold and the smile that had been forming disappeared, leaving an expressionless mask behind.
Sam’s words ran through his head again, and he frowned at the point where Sam had caught himself, corrected his wording - the hunter hadn’t simply known he was injured, he’d felt the injuries as though they were his own. That wasn’t how a Bond was supposed to work. Emotions, yeah, those could get easily confused…but thoughts, physical sensation - Bond-mates were supposed to have an awareness of these things in each other, but no more than that.
That Sam said the pain had disappeared after he’d apologised was small consolation. It had disappeared when he retreated from the Bond, but Sam had arrived in a mess, which meant something else happened after that. He thought he knew, but he needed to be certain…
“Sam, you said you ran after you heard me?”
Sam pushed himself up to sit, mimicking Gabriel’s position by folding his legs in front of him in, and nodded.
“What happened after you ran? Because I’m guessing if you ran, you weren’t in the state you arrived at Bobby’s in, right? And don’t down-play anything Sammy - you have no idea how important this is.”
“I got a few hundred feet from the car when something hit me - I don’t know how to…it was worse than being hurled into a concrete wall by a demon, like fire burning through every cell of my body… The whole world went white, and the next thing I knew Dean was there…”
*Well shit.*
Gabriel could feel Sam’s memories of what he’d felt as the kid tried to describe it, and the hunter’s description didn’t even come close. Oh, he wasn’t trying to down-play it - he’d listened to Gabriel’s warning - he just didn’t have the words to properly describe it.
He’d felt the full force of Gabriel’s grace hitting him. Despite Gabriel blocking off the Bond. Despite the distance between them.
In fact, those two things were the only reason it hadn’t killed the hunter outright. His containing it again so quickly to protect Castiel was the only reason it hadn’t destroyed his Bond-mate after the fact, weakened as he was by the sudden onslaught.
“Gabriel…?”
He focussed on Sam’s face and realised that his hunter was waiting patiently for an explanation. He thought about sugar-coating it (because everything was better with sugar, he thought weakly), but then remembered his promise to keep his human fully in the loop as far as the Bond went.
“My Grace…” he whispered softly.
At Sam’s questioning look, he continued.
“What you felt - it was my Grace. It was me lashing out to kill Zachariah…I didn’t realise Sammy - I had no idea the Bond was that strong on your side…if I had…Shit, kiddo! I nearly killed you dealing with that hell-bound, polluted, poisonous sonuvabitch!”
He’d never intended to take a Bond-mate, not even before the first war. The depth of connection he’d seen in others - it had terrified him. After the war…
He had seen what losing Lucifer had done to Michael. Everyone had. How it had broken him, left him less…a shadow of himself with a darkness festering where his Bond had once shone with Lucifer’s grace. No-one had Bonded after that, not before Gabriel left Heaven, and he doubted anyone had since.
That he had almost killed his Bond-mate…he couldn’t process it, couldn’t imagine what would have come next. Couldn’t imagine anything being next, ever again.
A mortal death would send Sam to Heaven which, while not somewhere Gabriel had ever planned to go again, was bearable at least. Obliteration by Archangelic Grace was not a mortal death. It was oblivion - no Heaven, no Hell, no Purgatory or wandering the Earth…it was absolute nothingness.
And he’d almost done that to Sam.
Chapter 18...