Superman Tonight... (7/?)
Title: Superman Tonight (7/?)
Author: lonelyphoenix85
Rating: R, for a few foul words, and more sure to come in subsequent parts.
Genre: Songfic, Pre-slash, h/c
Pairing:Sam/Gabriel pre-slash, implied Dean/Cas
Spoilers: through to Changing Channels (5x08)
Warnings: None
Word Count: 1853 (this part, 13689 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 awesome new beta for this story, of_red_clouds - you're awesome!
Previous chapters: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Gabriel watched as Sam gaped open-mouthed, his eyes wide and eyebrows raised in a comical sort of panicked shock.
“You...” Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “What does that mean? Bonded how?”
Gabriel would have been worried at Sam’s sudden mood-shift, if he couldn’t hear the hunter’s thoughts still going ninety miles a minute. The forced layer of calm that had descended reminded him so much of a soldier - *which is exactly what he’s been raised to be,* Gabriel reminded himself silently, *a soldier in an endless war.* - Sam hadn’t dismissed his anger, hadn’t soothed it, he’d leashed it. Emotion could be a weakness or a weapon, and John Winchester hadn’t taught his sons to be weak. Sam was just waiting patiently, gathering information ready to make the most effective use of his anger.
*Time to convince you it’s not gonna be necessary then, aye kiddo?* Gabriel thought, *Now how in Dad’s name do I do that?*
He could pretty it up, make it out to be all sunshine and daisies and candy and rainbows, but something told him that wasn’t going to cut it. No, best to stick with the truth - give Sam the facts, good and bad, and hope that the hunter would appreciate his honesty enough to calm the fuck down. This was exactly why he’d avoided getting close to anyone since he’d left Heaven - everything got so damned complicated!
“A Soul-bond. My Grace is permanently entwined with your soul - there’s no way to undo it, either.”
“Permanent like until I die? Or...”
“Permanent like until I do? Door number two kiddo - although the two could well coincide, since you dying will drag me home, and I’ve got some pretty pissed off brothers up there at the moment.”
“Home...?”
“When your soul goes to Heaven, the bond won’t let me stay down here Sammy - not without feeling like I’m being torn apart, anyways.”
At the look on Sam’s face Gabriel continued, not even needing to read his mind this time.
“For a genius, you can be a huge idiot, you know that Sasquatch? You’re fighting the Devil and trying to stop the apocalypse - that’s not the way to buy a ticket to Hell kid.”
“Not even when the whole thing’s my fault in the first place?”
“We’ve had this conversation, Sam. Quit trying to hog all the blame. You’re Heaven-ward bound, and now, so am I. It’s a done deal, so if we could just move on...”
“What, exactly, does the bond involve? I mean, how was it formed?”
“What it involves is a tricky question - and no, I’m not hiding anything,” he added, holding up his hands in defence, “I’m just not completely...certain... You need to understand, this kind of bond - it’s rare between angels; I’ve never heard of a completed bond between an angel and a human. We’re in uncharted waters here Sammy. I can make some guesses, but that’s all they’ll be - slightly educated guesses.”
At Sam’s nod Gabriel relaxed slightly - there would be more questions later, he was sure, but hopefully by then he’d have a better idea what was going to happen.
“As to the how of it...” he paused, trying to think of the best way to explain. “Did you know that angels can see human souls? I mean actually see them, while they’re still body-bound? You can tell the difference between those who’ve had it easy and those who haven’t, too. Souls get marked, dirtied...in some really bad cases they get torn. Life wears people down and their souls fade.”
“No wonder the angels all hate me - I probably look like hell,” Sam muttered, adding with a pained grin “pun absolutely intended.”
Gabriel smirked at that.
“Well, unless that good old Winchester luck leads you straight to Mikey, Luci or Rafe, the next angel to get a good look at you will probably turn tail and run, Sammy...they never were fond of picking on someone their own size.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re carrying enough power around right now to out-rank everyone not an Archangel or Dad, and they won’t know you can’t access it. They also won’t know where you got it, and they don’t like being in the dark about things - scares ‘em.”
“Cas...he looked at me funny when they got back - I thought it was just because he was so out of it...”
“And don’t think I’m not waiting for an explanation there kiddo - what have you Winchesters been doing to my baby brother?”
“Last time he spoke to you, you left him bruised and bleeding, what do you care?” Gabriel watched as anger filled Sam’s eyes, although he kept the rest of his face as neutral as possible - *kid could probably make a killing at poker,* Gabriel thought wryly.
“A few scrapes he could easily heal. I’m not the reason he’s unconscious.”
“Unconscious? No, he’s just sleeping...”
Confusion and panic broke through Sam’s emotionless facade, and Gabriel couldn’t help but wonder a little at the level of attachment the hunter had to his brother. Castiel wasn’t just an ally, he was one of them now; even if this war killed him, he wouldn’t die alone - he was a part of something in a way Gabriel hadn’t been since before Lucifer fell, and it made the Archangel ache with want.
“Angels don’t sleep, Sam. Not even when they’re as low on Grace as Castiel is. He isn’t in any immediate danger, but whatever caused it can’t be allowed to happen again - I’m not sure he’d survive it.”
The silence that followed this pronouncement was deafening. Sam’s next question came a few minutes later.
“Can you help him?”
Apparently his own problems were easily forgotten in the face of the younger Angel’s danger. His anger and mistrust pushed aside, pride swallowed entirely to beg help for his friend.
This was why Gabriel kept getting drawn back to the damn Winchesters. Once you were theirs there was nothing they wouldn’t do for you, and his baby brother had earned a place alongside them, had earned a devotion he probably didn’t even fully grasp yet.
“I don’t know, Sammy. I can try, but the way Castiel is falling...it’s never happened like this before. I don’t know why it is now.”
“It’s like everything we touch falls to pieces,” Sam whispered brokenly, “is he being punished for helping us?”
“Only by our dickhead brothers Sammy. I don’t think Dad’s weighing in yet.”
A few more minutes passed in silence, before Gabriel snapped up some more hot chocolate and passed a mug over to Sam, who smiled slightly in thanks.
“So, souls show wear and tear, right?”
“Right. Yours though...yours was something else. The damage to your soul was more than enough to break most people Sam.” Gabriel waved off Sam’s attempted interruption. “Ah ah...just listen kid. You wanted the facts, so I’m giving them to you. Absolutely no sugar-coating, and I’ll try and keep my opinions to myself for now and be objective.”
He paused to sip his hot chocolate, searching for the right words.
“Right, so... imagine your soul when you’re born is a white sheet...pure, brilliant white. Yours got itself a small red stain when you were six months old, not all over, just a spot in the corner, say. Since then it’s been twisted, torn, stained and cut at, until it’s a miracle it’s even holding itself together. The really strange thing though Sammy, is that around the stains, between the cuts and the tears, your sheet is still that same pure white it was when you were born... Do you have any idea how rare it is, for a soul not to fade? Even Dean’s an off-white these days...”
“Yeah, Hell’ll do that to a person...” Gabriel ignored the muttered comment and carried on as if Sam hadn’t spoken - there would be another time for that particular set of issues, they needed to stay on track or they’d run out of dream-time.
“...but you, you still have such strength and determination - you fall and you fall but you just keep picking your over-sized ass back up. It makes you sort of hard to ignore kiddo.”
“So your saying that, what? My soul’s fit to fall apart like a house of cards in a strong breeze?”
“Not anymore.”
SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN
“Because you did something to me.”
Sam struggled to keep his voice even, to keep his face expressionless. He hated feeling so powerless and vulnerable. He hated that he was being forced to rely on Gabriel for help. More than anything he hated how badly he wanted to rely on Gabriel to help him.
The Archangel had called him strong, but that was crap. He wasn’t strong. He’d screwed up and been tricked so many times already, and it was just a matter of time before he did something else that put everyone he cared about in danger, until he got more people hurt.
*Focus!* he thought harshly. He couldn’t afford to break down, he needed the rest of this explanation.
“I used my Grace to patch the tears up, to strengthen the damaged areas, and to wash away the stains.”
“Wash away...” Sam trailed off, not quite willing to finish the thought. If he said it out loud and was wrong...
“All the stains, Sam. That was the kicker actually. It takes a lot of power to burn out demon blood - which, by the way, you had a lot less of than I was expecting. What happened to all the go-juice you were chugging down with that demon bitch?”
“Long story made up entirely of guesswork.” Because he didn’t fancy explaining right now that actually, there was a chance that God had been weighing in a little already. Especially not when Gabriel could contradict it and give them a whole new thing to worry about. It could wait.
“Ooookay...a story for later?” Gabriel drawled, giving Sam a curious look, head tilted slightly to one side. “Anywho...If I’d just patched up the holes you could’ve been on your merry way, but I never was one to do half a job. The amount of Grace it took to get rid of the taint cemented the bond before I even realised what had happened - I mentioned that it shouldn’t even have been possible, right?”
“Yeah.”
“There’re gonna be a lot of details to figure out now though Sammy...and here’s rule numero uno - anything even vaguely unexpected happens, you feel even slightly out of the ordinary, you tell me, straight away.”
Sam guessed that made sense. If they didn’t know what to expect it was best to keep an eye on everything. All the same...
“That goes both ways. If you figure out anything, you have to tell me - I won’t be kept in the dark about something that involves me. And I won’t lie to Dean and Cas either, so you’re going to have to figure out some way to get along with them if you’re hanging around.”
“This whole thing started because I wanted on Team Winchester, Sammy, remember? I think I can play nice with the other kiddies,” Gabriel replied with a smirk.
“You need to give me chance to explain it to them before you show up, too. You’re not exactly Mr. Popularity at the moment.”
“Yessir, Cap’n Sammy, Sir!” Gabriel answered with a quick and sloppy salute, grinning widely. “Now, on to the important things...we’ve had hot chocolate, I think it’s time for toasted marshmallows you promised me - what say we pop to your cabin?”
Sam didn’t even bother replying as he saw Gabriel’s hand lift, fingers poised to snap. The next thing he knew, they were in front of the log fire, and Gabriel was offering him a skewer with two marshmallows stuck on the top.
Sam smiled and accepted it, turning to face the fire as he felt himself finally relax a bit.
Life had just got a whole heck of a lot more complicated, but he couldn’t help hoping that in this case it was in their favour.
Chapter 8