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starsficGabriel’s life is definitely changed by the fact that he doesn’t die. (Thanks Sam!) Whether it’s technically an AU or not is perhaps debatable.
Bingo square #8: "Alternate History: personal life of a character changed"
(All prompts from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
au_bingo ~ custom card.)
Back in Time
He was the one who was screaming. Something was all around him, holding him down. There were restraints on his arms and his legs and so help him, if Gabriel had sent him back to the panic room then Samael wouldn’t have to worry about killing him because Sam would destroy him.
With a strength born of hysteria and fear Sam managed to yank himself free, and now there were hands on his arms and they were still trying to hold him down. He couldn’t hear anything over the sound of his own voice. He’d lost Jo. He’d lost Gabriel. He thought screaming was really the least he could do.
Until something sharp and cold slapped him in the face and he snarled, lunging after it –
And it held him. It let him slam his body up against the restraint. It wrapped itself around him, arms and body and wings.
Wings.
“Sam,” the voice was saying. “Sam. Sam. Sammy.”
The fact that he could hear it made him realized he’d stopped screaming. He couldn’t seem to talk, though, couldn’t disentangle his fingers from the shirt crumpled under his hands. He was crying. He thought he was shaking, but he was being held so hard he couldn’t tell.
“Sam,” Dean’s voice said again. “It’s okay. Sammy. Sammy, you’re okay. It’s all right.”
“Jo,” he croaked. He didn’t know how Dean understood him, but he did, and he wasn’t letting go which right now was all Sam really wanted. That and not burning to death. Or falling. Or being torn to pieces. All of which had seemed to be happening at once just seconds before.
He still wasn’t totally sure he was alive.
“She’s okay, Sam, she’s right here. Jo’s here, okay? She’s fine. She’s better than you.”
Which didn’t necessarily equal “fine,” he was pretty sure. He drew in a shuddering breath, lifted his head, and fuck, he really was clinging to Dean in the middle of a crowded room. His own crowded room, which meant that Jo had totally lied. Or just not told him the truth. They had been standing around his bedside.
“Okay,” he muttered, and the word caught in his throat. God, he was crying. Actually crying.
Dean’s wings – still weird – eased a little, and he wasn’t holding Sam quite as hard anymore. “You’re okay,” he said, one more time. “We’re good. Gabriel got you out.”
Something in his chest seized, and it was like being socked in the gut. “Gabriel,” he gasped, throat hot and raw and everything was stupidly blurry but Dean looked white. Like he was losing blood, like he was about to pass out... like Sam was holding him up as much as he was holding Sam up.
“We’re okay,” Dean repeated. “You gonna make it?”
Sam let go of his shirt to clench his hands on Dean’s arms. “Where’s Gabriel?” he demanded. He could hear his voice rasp. “Where – what happened?”
Dean shook his head, and Sam saw him swallow hard. Like Dean cared about Gabriel, what the fuck. What was that even supposed to mean?
Then Dean’s wings fell, and Sam saw Castiel’s ashen face behind him.
“Gabriel is losing,” Castiel said simply.
Sam craned his neck, gaze latching onto Jo for just long enough to be sure she was alive. She did look better than he did; Dean was right. Ellen was holding her, but their arms were loose around each other. It looked closer to a normal hug than a death grip. What he still didn’t see was Gabriel.
“Where is he?” Sam took in Jophiel, pressed into the corner like she was trying not to be there and not looking any better than Cas. He saw the closed door, the jacket on the bed – the one he must have fought his way out of when he thought he was being held down – and the stupid teddy bear with the Mickey Mouse ears, still sitting in its chair.
No one had taken its seat. Sam didn’t know whether that was creepy or poignant or just another sign of how much none of them were thinking right now. How long had it been, anyway? He’d been gone for days, but Jo was wearing the same thing he’d seen her in the day Gabriel left him the chocolates and then disappeared like he had better things to do.
It was the night Samael had...
It had to have been. He still couldn’t remember.
He felt Dean stagger against him, grip bruising his arms and Sam just took it, because what else was he supposed to do? “Where is he?” he insisted, staring Castiel down like he could will a reply out of him. Dean clearly wasn’t with it enough to answer anymore, and that freaked Sam out more than anything.
“He’s elsewhere,” Castiel said. He didn’t look good, but he looked a lot better than Dean at this point. “We haven’t been able to track him except through you.”
“Then what the fuck am I doing here?” Sam demanded.
“Gabriel must have done it,” Castiel said. “You and Jo both awoke at the same time, albeit with different degrees of reaction. That was just before Gabriel’s grace started to wane.”
“He’s fighting,” Sam said. “He’s fighting Samael, and we’re here. Why are we here?”
“She’s trying to protect the children,” Jophiel said.
Dean’s wings flared, not white, but sickly light like he was trying to force himself up and he couldn’t do it. “This isn’t the way,” he said tightly. “We can’t keep killing each other, Jo; it’s a fucking waste.”
Sam glanced at Jophiel. She said nothing, but the expression on her face was clear: Tell Gabriel that.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sam asked, adjusting his grip so he had his hands under Dean’s arms instead of on top of them. He held him up more easily then, even as Dean’s knees buckled and Sam shoved him back toward the bed. “Whoa, whoa – what do I do? Cas?”
“The archangels are connected,” Castiel said, and his voice was too full of regret for Sam to hear everything he said. “Killing Gabriel will wound Samael as well.”
He wanted to protest, wanted to say she said she wouldn’t kill him or maybe no one is killing anyone. Even better, Gabriel can’t die, he doesn’t know how. Or, at the end of the day, Dean won’t let this happen.
He didn’t have time to say any of it before Dean keeled over, hand over his chest like he was having a goddamned heart attack, and he just stopped breathing. “Dean – Cas!” Sam burst out, falling down beside him and pulling his hands away, feeling for a pulse. “What do we do?”
“He is in mourning,” Castiel said quietly. “He will recover.”
“Mourning,” Sam repeated, horrified. He couldn’t get out more than that one word.
“Gabriel is dead.” Cas’ voice, competent though it was, sounded hollow. “Samael will no doubt go into exile, and the circle of creation will falter in their wake. It has happened before.”
“When Michael threw Lucifer into hell,” Sam said. Dean was totally still under his hands, and okay, he was an angel, but he was doing a damn good impression of a dead angel right now and that wasn’t making anyone feel any better.
“Yes,” Cas said softly. “We will need him to come back from this.”
Sam didn’t know if he meant Dean or Lucifer, and he really didn’t have time to ask. If this was like the Omega 13 device, then every second they stood around being stupid was a second they might not get back. “Cas,” he said, standing up. He brushed a hand over Dean’s shoulder, wishing he could touch his wings. “Send me back.”
Cas stared at him with that look of total non-comprehension he’d worn so many times before.
“I’m not kidding,” Sam said. “I know you can do it. Send me back to the moment Gabriel sent us away.”
“Back to Pandora,” Castiel said, like he wasn’t sure.
Like it was a real place.
“Yeah,” Sam said, because he didn’t have time to ask: how much Castiel knew, how much any of them knew, how much of what Gabriel made up wasn’t as fictional as it seemed. “He tried to get me to help him against Samael. Then I fell, and we woke up here.”
“He returned you,” Castiel said. “When he engaged with Samael she must have been distracted enough that you could be moved out. To safety. He likely would not wish you back in harm’s way.”
“He likely would,” Sam retorted, “if it meant saving his life.”
“Sam,” Castiel began.
“Cas,” Sam snapped. “I can help him! My eyes were closed; I couldn’t see anything. I could have been there.”
“Losing Gabriel has traumatized Michael,” Castiel said, ignoring his perfectly valid time travel argument. “Losing you would kill him. I can not allow you to take such a chance.”
“I’m not leaving Dean,” Sam said. “I’m not stupid, Cas. Killing me kills him, I get that. I get that better than you could ever imagine. I’m doing this for him, for all of them, and I’m not going to mess it up.”
“Castiel,” Jo said quietly. Sam didn’t dare look at her, afraid that if he let Cas look away he’d never get his attention back in time. “He might be able to help.”
“I know he can help,” Castiel said. He was still staring at Sam, but his patience was fraying and Sam knew with a sudden blinding clarity that Cas wanted to be where he was right now. He wanted to be the one beside Dean, the one who could throw himself into it to make everything better... the one Dean needed the way he needed Sam.
“I’m less sure that Gabriel will let him help,” Castiel was saying, and Sam bit back the urge to tell him, it isn’t love, Cas. Dependence isn’t love.
They loved each other in spite of the need, not because of it.
“He kicked me out once,” Sam said instead. “So he does it again. We’re no worse off than we are right now.”
He could see on Castiel’s face the knowledge that that was probably the best case scenario. But Sam had spent his whole life building a whole lot of something out of nothing, and he wasn’t about to stop now. Not when he was finally and literally on the side of angels.
“Be careful,” Castiel said at last.
He didn’t fall, he just – he was just there. Standing on a tree branch bigger than the last one, wide enough for three people to walk side by side, and they were gonna need it. There were three of them, all right. And a nice calm walk was definitely too much to ask.
Almost too late, he saw himself disappear. Gabriel flung a hand out even as Samael drew her sword, and Sam turned just in time to see him and Jo knocked from their perch. They had fallen, it hadn’t been an illusion this time. They tumbled together into nothingness, which he figured was at least better than staying to hit the bottom.
Samael’s attention returned slower than his did, and he didn’t stop to wonder why. Gabriel had warned him, he’d said, don’t get between us, so Sam didn’t. He just pushed. Mentally, without anywhere near the effort it should have taken, but he wasn’t trying to burn. He was just trying to... push.
To push until Gabriel fell.
It was surprisingly effective, but of course Samael followed him, and they could fly. They could fly with swords. If Gabriel ever pulled his, and as soon as Sam thought it he had a sword in his hands. Him. Not Gabriel. He didn’t wonder about that either, just flung it at them end over end, because this was his reality too.
It didn’t hit Samael. It didn’t come anywhere near Samael, but the rhythm of her flight broke and this time Sam pushed her too. Harder. If it burned, he wasn’t going to cry about it.
That was when Gabriel looked up. He was distracted. He had reason, obviously, but no way were they going to work together on this. No matter what he had planned before. Sam reached for him anyway.
After that, all he saw was white.
Bingo square #8: "Alternate History: personal life of a character changed"
(All prompts from
au_bingo ~ custom card.)He was the one who was screaming. Something was all around him, holding him down. There were restraints on his arms and his legs and so help him, if Gabriel had sent him back to the panic room then Samael wouldn’t have to worry about killing him because Sam would destroy him.
With a strength born of hysteria and fear Sam managed to yank himself free, and now there were hands on his arms and they were still trying to hold him down. He couldn’t hear anything over the sound of his own voice. He’d lost Jo. He’d lost Gabriel. He thought screaming was really the least he could do.
Until something sharp and cold slapped him in the face and he snarled, lunging after it –
And it held him. It let him slam his body up against the restraint. It wrapped itself around him, arms and body and wings.
Wings.
“Sam,” the voice was saying. “Sam. Sam. Sammy.”
The fact that he could hear it made him realized he’d stopped screaming. He couldn’t seem to talk, though, couldn’t disentangle his fingers from the shirt crumpled under his hands. He was crying. He thought he was shaking, but he was being held so hard he couldn’t tell.
“Sam,” Dean’s voice said again. “It’s okay. Sammy. Sammy, you’re okay. It’s all right.”
“Jo,” he croaked. He didn’t know how Dean understood him, but he did, and he wasn’t letting go which right now was all Sam really wanted. That and not burning to death. Or falling. Or being torn to pieces. All of which had seemed to be happening at once just seconds before.
He still wasn’t totally sure he was alive.
“She’s okay, Sam, she’s right here. Jo’s here, okay? She’s fine. She’s better than you.”
Which didn’t necessarily equal “fine,” he was pretty sure. He drew in a shuddering breath, lifted his head, and fuck, he really was clinging to Dean in the middle of a crowded room. His own crowded room, which meant that Jo had totally lied. Or just not told him the truth. They had been standing around his bedside.
“Okay,” he muttered, and the word caught in his throat. God, he was crying. Actually crying.
Dean’s wings – still weird – eased a little, and he wasn’t holding Sam quite as hard anymore. “You’re okay,” he said, one more time. “We’re good. Gabriel got you out.”
Something in his chest seized, and it was like being socked in the gut. “Gabriel,” he gasped, throat hot and raw and everything was stupidly blurry but Dean looked white. Like he was losing blood, like he was about to pass out... like Sam was holding him up as much as he was holding Sam up.
“We’re okay,” Dean repeated. “You gonna make it?”
Sam let go of his shirt to clench his hands on Dean’s arms. “Where’s Gabriel?” he demanded. He could hear his voice rasp. “Where – what happened?”
Dean shook his head, and Sam saw him swallow hard. Like Dean cared about Gabriel, what the fuck. What was that even supposed to mean?
Then Dean’s wings fell, and Sam saw Castiel’s ashen face behind him.
“Gabriel is losing,” Castiel said simply.
Sam craned his neck, gaze latching onto Jo for just long enough to be sure she was alive. She did look better than he did; Dean was right. Ellen was holding her, but their arms were loose around each other. It looked closer to a normal hug than a death grip. What he still didn’t see was Gabriel.
“Where is he?” Sam took in Jophiel, pressed into the corner like she was trying not to be there and not looking any better than Cas. He saw the closed door, the jacket on the bed – the one he must have fought his way out of when he thought he was being held down – and the stupid teddy bear with the Mickey Mouse ears, still sitting in its chair.
No one had taken its seat. Sam didn’t know whether that was creepy or poignant or just another sign of how much none of them were thinking right now. How long had it been, anyway? He’d been gone for days, but Jo was wearing the same thing he’d seen her in the day Gabriel left him the chocolates and then disappeared like he had better things to do.
It was the night Samael had...
It had to have been. He still couldn’t remember.
He felt Dean stagger against him, grip bruising his arms and Sam just took it, because what else was he supposed to do? “Where is he?” he insisted, staring Castiel down like he could will a reply out of him. Dean clearly wasn’t with it enough to answer anymore, and that freaked Sam out more than anything.
“He’s elsewhere,” Castiel said. He didn’t look good, but he looked a lot better than Dean at this point. “We haven’t been able to track him except through you.”
“Then what the fuck am I doing here?” Sam demanded.
“Gabriel must have done it,” Castiel said. “You and Jo both awoke at the same time, albeit with different degrees of reaction. That was just before Gabriel’s grace started to wane.”
“He’s fighting,” Sam said. “He’s fighting Samael, and we’re here. Why are we here?”
“She’s trying to protect the children,” Jophiel said.
Dean’s wings flared, not white, but sickly light like he was trying to force himself up and he couldn’t do it. “This isn’t the way,” he said tightly. “We can’t keep killing each other, Jo; it’s a fucking waste.”
Sam glanced at Jophiel. She said nothing, but the expression on her face was clear: Tell Gabriel that.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sam asked, adjusting his grip so he had his hands under Dean’s arms instead of on top of them. He held him up more easily then, even as Dean’s knees buckled and Sam shoved him back toward the bed. “Whoa, whoa – what do I do? Cas?”
“The archangels are connected,” Castiel said, and his voice was too full of regret for Sam to hear everything he said. “Killing Gabriel will wound Samael as well.”
He wanted to protest, wanted to say she said she wouldn’t kill him or maybe no one is killing anyone. Even better, Gabriel can’t die, he doesn’t know how. Or, at the end of the day, Dean won’t let this happen.
He didn’t have time to say any of it before Dean keeled over, hand over his chest like he was having a goddamned heart attack, and he just stopped breathing. “Dean – Cas!” Sam burst out, falling down beside him and pulling his hands away, feeling for a pulse. “What do we do?”
“He is in mourning,” Castiel said quietly. “He will recover.”
“Mourning,” Sam repeated, horrified. He couldn’t get out more than that one word.
“Gabriel is dead.” Cas’ voice, competent though it was, sounded hollow. “Samael will no doubt go into exile, and the circle of creation will falter in their wake. It has happened before.”
“When Michael threw Lucifer into hell,” Sam said. Dean was totally still under his hands, and okay, he was an angel, but he was doing a damn good impression of a dead angel right now and that wasn’t making anyone feel any better.
“Yes,” Cas said softly. “We will need him to come back from this.”
Sam didn’t know if he meant Dean or Lucifer, and he really didn’t have time to ask. If this was like the Omega 13 device, then every second they stood around being stupid was a second they might not get back. “Cas,” he said, standing up. He brushed a hand over Dean’s shoulder, wishing he could touch his wings. “Send me back.”
Cas stared at him with that look of total non-comprehension he’d worn so many times before.
“I’m not kidding,” Sam said. “I know you can do it. Send me back to the moment Gabriel sent us away.”
“Back to Pandora,” Castiel said, like he wasn’t sure.
Like it was a real place.
“Yeah,” Sam said, because he didn’t have time to ask: how much Castiel knew, how much any of them knew, how much of what Gabriel made up wasn’t as fictional as it seemed. “He tried to get me to help him against Samael. Then I fell, and we woke up here.”
“He returned you,” Castiel said. “When he engaged with Samael she must have been distracted enough that you could be moved out. To safety. He likely would not wish you back in harm’s way.”
“He likely would,” Sam retorted, “if it meant saving his life.”
“Sam,” Castiel began.
“Cas,” Sam snapped. “I can help him! My eyes were closed; I couldn’t see anything. I could have been there.”
“Losing Gabriel has traumatized Michael,” Castiel said, ignoring his perfectly valid time travel argument. “Losing you would kill him. I can not allow you to take such a chance.”
“I’m not leaving Dean,” Sam said. “I’m not stupid, Cas. Killing me kills him, I get that. I get that better than you could ever imagine. I’m doing this for him, for all of them, and I’m not going to mess it up.”
“Castiel,” Jo said quietly. Sam didn’t dare look at her, afraid that if he let Cas look away he’d never get his attention back in time. “He might be able to help.”
“I know he can help,” Castiel said. He was still staring at Sam, but his patience was fraying and Sam knew with a sudden blinding clarity that Cas wanted to be where he was right now. He wanted to be the one beside Dean, the one who could throw himself into it to make everything better... the one Dean needed the way he needed Sam.
“I’m less sure that Gabriel will let him help,” Castiel was saying, and Sam bit back the urge to tell him, it isn’t love, Cas. Dependence isn’t love.
They loved each other in spite of the need, not because of it.
“He kicked me out once,” Sam said instead. “So he does it again. We’re no worse off than we are right now.”
He could see on Castiel’s face the knowledge that that was probably the best case scenario. But Sam had spent his whole life building a whole lot of something out of nothing, and he wasn’t about to stop now. Not when he was finally and literally on the side of angels.
“Be careful,” Castiel said at last.
He didn’t fall, he just – he was just there. Standing on a tree branch bigger than the last one, wide enough for three people to walk side by side, and they were gonna need it. There were three of them, all right. And a nice calm walk was definitely too much to ask.
Almost too late, he saw himself disappear. Gabriel flung a hand out even as Samael drew her sword, and Sam turned just in time to see him and Jo knocked from their perch. They had fallen, it hadn’t been an illusion this time. They tumbled together into nothingness, which he figured was at least better than staying to hit the bottom.
Samael’s attention returned slower than his did, and he didn’t stop to wonder why. Gabriel had warned him, he’d said, don’t get between us, so Sam didn’t. He just pushed. Mentally, without anywhere near the effort it should have taken, but he wasn’t trying to burn. He was just trying to... push.
To push until Gabriel fell.
It was surprisingly effective, but of course Samael followed him, and they could fly. They could fly with swords. If Gabriel ever pulled his, and as soon as Sam thought it he had a sword in his hands. Him. Not Gabriel. He didn’t wonder about that either, just flung it at them end over end, because this was his reality too.
It didn’t hit Samael. It didn’t come anywhere near Samael, but the rhythm of her flight broke and this time Sam pushed her too. Harder. If it burned, he wasn’t going to cry about it.
That was when Gabriel looked up. He was distracted. He had reason, obviously, but no way were they going to work together on this. No matter what he had planned before. Sam reached for him anyway.
After that, all he saw was white.