(no subject)
In the end, they just decided to continue on like they always had, seeking out evil things and killing them and chasing down ancient and powerful artifacts and beings in the hopes of acquiring them or turning them to their side. For the first few days Cas and Gabriel hung around, until the magic had ‘settled’ according to Gabriel. Then they started experimenting.
The first was Gabriel snapping himself away from the group, to see how severe the consequences of leaving the group were. He told them that he would come back as soon as the effects were severe enough that he literally couldn’t stay away any longer. He said he could be gone from anywhere between ten minutes and a week.
He was back three days later, appearing directly behind Cas, gritting his teeth and pressing a hand to his chest. Apparently it started as an ache that increased to a more severe pain as time went by. Gabriel commented that he would’ve been back earlier if they hadn’t ‘stopped at that goddamn diner for lunch. Seriously. Would take-out have killed you?’.
After that both Gabriel and Cas took off, both as another experiment and to give the humans some time away from the angels to think and discuss. However, this time around, Dean and Sam both experienced an inability to stop thinking about either of them, and when, a week later, they appeared in their motel room, the brothers both heaved a sigh of relief, and relished the absence of pain.
With the most pressing issue out of the way, they moved on to the others. They quickly discovered that while none of them could read minds that hadn’t been able to before, they were able to read each other’s emotions and moods pretty well. It wasn’t so strong that it was overwhelming them, but it was definitely there in all their minds, like quiet but persistent background music. Also, they could lie to each other, but it generally took great effort and total concentration, which made it fairly obvious when someone was trying to. None of them were very surprised (“Makes sense, since demons set this up,” Gabriel commented).
As for the physical intimacy, while Gabriel at first was incredibly handsy, wrapping arms around them and hanging off shoulders and just generally being very touchy-feely and annoying, the rest of them found that, while it was still a lot more physical than they had ever been before, the limits were fairly reasonable. A pat on the shoulder or back, a gentle brush of hands, ruffling hair or a quick, one-armed hug usually took care of the problem, though if they did touch more they got a warm, secure feeling spreading through them. However, the feeling wasn’t enough to dispel the awkwardness that Sam and Dean felt, casually touching in public, most of the time the movements subconscious(Cas wasn’t awkward, just hesitant, like he’d never done this before and wasn’t quite sure how to proceed), so they eventually told Gabriel to knock it off. The archangel subsided, poutily, although he was still the most physical of the group.
And so life continued, more or less peacefully, for three weeks.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was during a quiet night, when Dean was watching TV on the motel bed with Cas, one arm around his shoulders, and he suddenly realized that he was running his fingers through the angel’s hair. He stopped, resting his hand on Cas’s shoulder, and after a few minutes asked, “There’s not any way to break this, is there?”
Gabriel, who had been reading some tabloid and chuckling, suddenly froze and all expression vanished from his face. The other three instantly turned all their attention on him, feeling the tension in him as perceptively as if someone had poured cold water on them. Gabriel was quiet a long time, breathing steadily and evenly, and when he met Dean’s eyes, his were flat, expressionless.
“In angel flocks, bindings are meant to be permanent. They can never be broken by any outside force save one, even by the ones in them. It’s more than ‘marriage amoung angels’. It’s…” Gabriel looked helplessly at Cas.
“It’s a binding of souls, a connection that is never entered lightly,” Cas said. “It is something that is generally discussed for a long time, ages before anything is actually done.” He paused. “It is truly difficult to express it in human terms. Suffice to say that no angel who ever entered such a binding would ever, ever wish to leave it again.”
The others felt more than saw Gabriel flinch, since on the outside the archangel appeared perfectly calm. He took another breath. “This one isn’t an angelic binding, but it’s as close to one as demons are ever going to get, which means it’s hellishly powerful.” Sam smiled slightly at the pun. Gabriel's mouth quirked. “I don’t know exactly how powerful it is, only that when I tried to break it, when it was first set on, I couldn’t.”
“So who can break this then?” Dean asked, at the same time that Sam said, “So there haven’t been any flocks that have broken up?” They threw each other half-hearted glares.
Gabriel was stiff as a board now. “The only one who can break angelic bindings is God,” he said slowly, as if he were picking his words carefully. “And I…have never heard of a flock that has been, ah…disbanded.” Even if they hadn’t all been connected emotionally, it would have been obvious to them that Gabriel was concealing something. There was something in his eyes, something tight and old, something that he refused to let them analyze, but returned to his tabloid, studying it as if it were only thing in the universe to exist.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
In the dream, Dean was floating in sparks and color, something vast and wide that he couldn’t recognize or comprehend, but slowly the landscape shifted until it was a grassy hill, with a little marble building on top, where there was a figure that he recognized, a figure that, for some reason, looked exactly like the Gabriel he knew of today. Gabriel was staring out across the field, an unusually calm and peaceful look on his face. He didn’t see the figure of the man who was sneaking up behind him, someone Dean had seen only once before, briefly. There was a gasp beside him, and he turned to Sam, who was staring in horror. “Lucifer,” he whispered.
Dean tried to call out to Gabriel, warn him, but it was too late, the devil had already sprung, hitting Gabriel from behind and wrapping arms around him. And Gabriel gasped in surprise, toppling over into the grass, and Dean was just about to go over and try to help him when suddenly Gabriel laughed, a ringing, happy tone that he had never heard before, and he stopped.
“You startled me, little brother.”
Lucifer smiled from where he was astride Gabriel’s back. “Well, that was the point, Gabriel.” Gabriel flipped over onto his back and Lucifer let him, smiling. “I was actually sent to find you. Father wants you for something.”
Gabriel mock-pouted. “Again? But I just did something for Him. What does He want now?”
“A memory,” Cas suddenly said from Dean’s other side, sounding startled. “This is one of Gabriel’s memories.”
“What are you two doing?” came another familiar voice, and Michael strode in with Raphael at his side, both of them wearing the vessels they had on Earth. The only difference was the fond smiles on both of them.
“Lucifer says that Father has something for me to do,” Gabriel said, turning his head upside-down to look at the two new arrivals. “But he had to pounce on me to tell me the message.”
Michael shook his head in amusement. “Lucifer, get off him. He has to go see our Father.”
Lucifer gave a wicked smile. “But he’s so comfy.” He wriggled on top of Gabriel to prove his point, which just made Gabriel laugh more.
Raphael rolled his eyes at the pair of them. “Oh, get off. You’re probably crushing him.”
“Am not!” Lucifer cried indignantly, but Gabriel gestured him closer and whispered something in his ear, something which made Lucifer laugh and launch himself at Michael and Raphael. They all collapsed into one huge pile, with Gabriel laughing himself silly behind them.
“So…they’re all in a flock?” Dean asked, watching the brothers tumble and tussle playfully.
“It would make sense,” Cas said. “They were brothers, and they used to be very close, from what I understand.”
“And then Lucifer Fell,” Sam mused, and the scene shifted, suddenly, abruptly, until it was Gabriel and Lucifer, Lucifer’s face a mask of rage, and Gabriel’s one of worry.
“It’s not that bad, Luci, really,” Gabriel said, resting a hand on Lucifer’s shoulder. Lucifer didn’t respond, just covered Gabriel’s hand with his own. “I mean, our Father did create them, after all. There must be something that’s, well…” Here he trailed off, as if he were searching for the words.
“Even you can’t find anything good about them, Gabriel, don’t even try.” Lucifer said harshly. “There is nothing good about these creations. They are nothing compared to us. Nothing. And still our Father demands that we bow down to them, love them more than we love Him.” Lucifer shook his head. “I cannot do it, Gabriel, you know this. Our Father is the one thing I love above all else. I cannot love these humans, these measly little meat-creatures, more than Him. I cannot. I will tell Him this, that I cannot accept His will in this.”
“He will be very angry,” Gabriel said hesitantly. “Shouldn’t…shouldn’t you at least try before you tell Him that you cannot? It surely cannot be as bad as you make it out to be.”
“No. It goes against every fiber of my being, Gabriel. I cannot do this.”
“Please, Lucifer,” Gabriel begged, but Lucifer’s hand slid from his own and he started to walk away.
“No Gabriel. I cannot.” Even as Lucifer said it, the scene was changing, until it was a plain room with windows that led to nothingness and Gabriel staring at Michael’s back, Michael who refused to look at him, focusing instead on the shining armor in his hand.
“You asked Father to…to destroy our bond,” Gabriel said, in the tones of child who doesn’t understand what has just happened. “You asked him to…to rip us all apart.”
“I couldn’t bear to be connected to that traitor anymore,” snarled Michael, polishing vigorously. Gabriel just stared. “Face it Gabriel, we’re better off this way. Better off, and happier too.” And with that Michael took his armor and disappeared, leaving Gabriel alone. Slowly, Gabriel fell against the wall and slid down, lifting his hands to stare at them blankly.
“Why did this happen?” he whispered brokenly, and closed his eyes, head sinking forward onto his knees. "I just want my brothers back. Please. I just...I just...want it all to be the way it was."
Dean became aware of the tears on his own cheeks as the world suddenly spun and melted into nothingness.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Dean and Sam woke at the same time, starting up in their beds as Cas suddenly turned from the window he had been staring at, all three turning to where Gabriel was sprawled a chair, boots up on the kitchen table, not sleeping, but ‘resting in a meditative state’ as he put it. The three of them looked at Gabriel’s calm face for a long time, feeling as if they had just found the first piece of the puzzle.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The next morning, when Gabriel tried to sleepily drape himself all over Dean, Dean gritted his teeth but let him.
Ties That Bind
The first was Gabriel snapping himself away from the group, to see how severe the consequences of leaving the group were. He told them that he would come back as soon as the effects were severe enough that he literally couldn’t stay away any longer. He said he could be gone from anywhere between ten minutes and a week.
He was back three days later, appearing directly behind Cas, gritting his teeth and pressing a hand to his chest. Apparently it started as an ache that increased to a more severe pain as time went by. Gabriel commented that he would’ve been back earlier if they hadn’t ‘stopped at that goddamn diner for lunch. Seriously. Would take-out have killed you?’.
After that both Gabriel and Cas took off, both as another experiment and to give the humans some time away from the angels to think and discuss. However, this time around, Dean and Sam both experienced an inability to stop thinking about either of them, and when, a week later, they appeared in their motel room, the brothers both heaved a sigh of relief, and relished the absence of pain.
With the most pressing issue out of the way, they moved on to the others. They quickly discovered that while none of them could read minds that hadn’t been able to before, they were able to read each other’s emotions and moods pretty well. It wasn’t so strong that it was overwhelming them, but it was definitely there in all their minds, like quiet but persistent background music. Also, they could lie to each other, but it generally took great effort and total concentration, which made it fairly obvious when someone was trying to. None of them were very surprised (“Makes sense, since demons set this up,” Gabriel commented).
As for the physical intimacy, while Gabriel at first was incredibly handsy, wrapping arms around them and hanging off shoulders and just generally being very touchy-feely and annoying, the rest of them found that, while it was still a lot more physical than they had ever been before, the limits were fairly reasonable. A pat on the shoulder or back, a gentle brush of hands, ruffling hair or a quick, one-armed hug usually took care of the problem, though if they did touch more they got a warm, secure feeling spreading through them. However, the feeling wasn’t enough to dispel the awkwardness that Sam and Dean felt, casually touching in public, most of the time the movements subconscious(Cas wasn’t awkward, just hesitant, like he’d never done this before and wasn’t quite sure how to proceed), so they eventually told Gabriel to knock it off. The archangel subsided, poutily, although he was still the most physical of the group.
And so life continued, more or less peacefully, for three weeks.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was during a quiet night, when Dean was watching TV on the motel bed with Cas, one arm around his shoulders, and he suddenly realized that he was running his fingers through the angel’s hair. He stopped, resting his hand on Cas’s shoulder, and after a few minutes asked, “There’s not any way to break this, is there?”
Gabriel, who had been reading some tabloid and chuckling, suddenly froze and all expression vanished from his face. The other three instantly turned all their attention on him, feeling the tension in him as perceptively as if someone had poured cold water on them. Gabriel was quiet a long time, breathing steadily and evenly, and when he met Dean’s eyes, his were flat, expressionless.
“In angel flocks, bindings are meant to be permanent. They can never be broken by any outside force save one, even by the ones in them. It’s more than ‘marriage amoung angels’. It’s…” Gabriel looked helplessly at Cas.
“It’s a binding of souls, a connection that is never entered lightly,” Cas said. “It is something that is generally discussed for a long time, ages before anything is actually done.” He paused. “It is truly difficult to express it in human terms. Suffice to say that no angel who ever entered such a binding would ever, ever wish to leave it again.”
The others felt more than saw Gabriel flinch, since on the outside the archangel appeared perfectly calm. He took another breath. “This one isn’t an angelic binding, but it’s as close to one as demons are ever going to get, which means it’s hellishly powerful.” Sam smiled slightly at the pun. Gabriel's mouth quirked. “I don’t know exactly how powerful it is, only that when I tried to break it, when it was first set on, I couldn’t.”
“So who can break this then?” Dean asked, at the same time that Sam said, “So there haven’t been any flocks that have broken up?” They threw each other half-hearted glares.
Gabriel was stiff as a board now. “The only one who can break angelic bindings is God,” he said slowly, as if he were picking his words carefully. “And I…have never heard of a flock that has been, ah…disbanded.” Even if they hadn’t all been connected emotionally, it would have been obvious to them that Gabriel was concealing something. There was something in his eyes, something tight and old, something that he refused to let them analyze, but returned to his tabloid, studying it as if it were only thing in the universe to exist.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
In the dream, Dean was floating in sparks and color, something vast and wide that he couldn’t recognize or comprehend, but slowly the landscape shifted until it was a grassy hill, with a little marble building on top, where there was a figure that he recognized, a figure that, for some reason, looked exactly like the Gabriel he knew of today. Gabriel was staring out across the field, an unusually calm and peaceful look on his face. He didn’t see the figure of the man who was sneaking up behind him, someone Dean had seen only once before, briefly. There was a gasp beside him, and he turned to Sam, who was staring in horror. “Lucifer,” he whispered.
Dean tried to call out to Gabriel, warn him, but it was too late, the devil had already sprung, hitting Gabriel from behind and wrapping arms around him. And Gabriel gasped in surprise, toppling over into the grass, and Dean was just about to go over and try to help him when suddenly Gabriel laughed, a ringing, happy tone that he had never heard before, and he stopped.
“You startled me, little brother.”
Lucifer smiled from where he was astride Gabriel’s back. “Well, that was the point, Gabriel.” Gabriel flipped over onto his back and Lucifer let him, smiling. “I was actually sent to find you. Father wants you for something.”
Gabriel mock-pouted. “Again? But I just did something for Him. What does He want now?”
“A memory,” Cas suddenly said from Dean’s other side, sounding startled. “This is one of Gabriel’s memories.”
“What are you two doing?” came another familiar voice, and Michael strode in with Raphael at his side, both of them wearing the vessels they had on Earth. The only difference was the fond smiles on both of them.
“Lucifer says that Father has something for me to do,” Gabriel said, turning his head upside-down to look at the two new arrivals. “But he had to pounce on me to tell me the message.”
Michael shook his head in amusement. “Lucifer, get off him. He has to go see our Father.”
Lucifer gave a wicked smile. “But he’s so comfy.” He wriggled on top of Gabriel to prove his point, which just made Gabriel laugh more.
Raphael rolled his eyes at the pair of them. “Oh, get off. You’re probably crushing him.”
“Am not!” Lucifer cried indignantly, but Gabriel gestured him closer and whispered something in his ear, something which made Lucifer laugh and launch himself at Michael and Raphael. They all collapsed into one huge pile, with Gabriel laughing himself silly behind them.
“So…they’re all in a flock?” Dean asked, watching the brothers tumble and tussle playfully.
“It would make sense,” Cas said. “They were brothers, and they used to be very close, from what I understand.”
“And then Lucifer Fell,” Sam mused, and the scene shifted, suddenly, abruptly, until it was Gabriel and Lucifer, Lucifer’s face a mask of rage, and Gabriel’s one of worry.
“It’s not that bad, Luci, really,” Gabriel said, resting a hand on Lucifer’s shoulder. Lucifer didn’t respond, just covered Gabriel’s hand with his own. “I mean, our Father did create them, after all. There must be something that’s, well…” Here he trailed off, as if he were searching for the words.
“Even you can’t find anything good about them, Gabriel, don’t even try.” Lucifer said harshly. “There is nothing good about these creations. They are nothing compared to us. Nothing. And still our Father demands that we bow down to them, love them more than we love Him.” Lucifer shook his head. “I cannot do it, Gabriel, you know this. Our Father is the one thing I love above all else. I cannot love these humans, these measly little meat-creatures, more than Him. I cannot. I will tell Him this, that I cannot accept His will in this.”
“He will be very angry,” Gabriel said hesitantly. “Shouldn’t…shouldn’t you at least try before you tell Him that you cannot? It surely cannot be as bad as you make it out to be.”
“No. It goes against every fiber of my being, Gabriel. I cannot do this.”
“Please, Lucifer,” Gabriel begged, but Lucifer’s hand slid from his own and he started to walk away.
“No Gabriel. I cannot.” Even as Lucifer said it, the scene was changing, until it was a plain room with windows that led to nothingness and Gabriel staring at Michael’s back, Michael who refused to look at him, focusing instead on the shining armor in his hand.
“You asked Father to…to destroy our bond,” Gabriel said, in the tones of child who doesn’t understand what has just happened. “You asked him to…to rip us all apart.”
“I couldn’t bear to be connected to that traitor anymore,” snarled Michael, polishing vigorously. Gabriel just stared. “Face it Gabriel, we’re better off this way. Better off, and happier too.” And with that Michael took his armor and disappeared, leaving Gabriel alone. Slowly, Gabriel fell against the wall and slid down, lifting his hands to stare at them blankly.
“Why did this happen?” he whispered brokenly, and closed his eyes, head sinking forward onto his knees. "I just want my brothers back. Please. I just...I just...want it all to be the way it was."
Dean became aware of the tears on his own cheeks as the world suddenly spun and melted into nothingness.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Dean and Sam woke at the same time, starting up in their beds as Cas suddenly turned from the window he had been staring at, all three turning to where Gabriel was sprawled a chair, boots up on the kitchen table, not sleeping, but ‘resting in a meditative state’ as he put it. The three of them looked at Gabriel’s calm face for a long time, feeling as if they had just found the first piece of the puzzle.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The next morning, when Gabriel tried to sleepily drape himself all over Dean, Dean gritted his teeth but let him.
Ties That Bind