library_j | "Limlal" (Reply)

Fic: Limlal

(inspired by

Title: Limlal
Author: jessebee
Rating: R
Genre: Angst, pre-slash
Pairing: Dean/Castiel, pre-slash Sam/Gabriel
Spoilers: 5.08

Warnings: Angst? Possible schmoop?
Disclaimer: It's Kripke's sandbox, I only play and run away
Word Count: ~2200

Summary: Sam is conflicted. Dean is tired. Cas is Cas. Bobby is awesome. And Gabriel has a story, too.

Note: Huge thanks to cageyklio for saying it didn't suck, and to morganoconner for saying it didn't suck AND listening to me whine about it. Inspired by a few lines in morganoconner's lovely, lovely story "True Colors," wherein Castiel noted that Gabriel had once been bonded (angelic marriage). Which made me wonder what Gabriel's story was. When he was drunk enough, I found out.

The fire crackled, spitting sparks up at the stars when Sam tossed another chunk of wood onto it. They'd been out here for a while, but they still had beer and Sam wasn't ready to let the night go quite yet, even though Dean was obviously still tired. Angelic healing evidently didn't do so much for "just plumb worn out." But Dean had growled when Castiel had none too subtly told him that he should rest. "I slept the whole damn day, Cas, I think I can stay up for my own 'the fucking world didn't end' party."

Dean's angel husband – and there was no way that would ever, ever stop being weird – had looked properly skeptical. Now he looked fondly annoyed as Dean once again yawned widely enough to split his face. They weren't cuddled up or anything – no, wait. Dean leaning that far into Castiel totally counted as cuddling, and Sam intended to tease him thoroughly for it in the morning. As soon as he got over the lump in his own throat.

"Go to bed, idjit," Bobby said from across the flames. "It's not like we can't build another fire tomorrow, if you're that damn enthralled."

Dean just grinned, broad and relaxed like he almost never was, having had just enough alcohol. "We saved the world, Bobby."

Castiel sucked in a sudden, startled breath a moment before someone clapped, slow and deliberate, in the darkness. "Yes, yes you did."

Three humans jerked upright as Gabriel walked into the glow of the firelight. "Win the game and get the forbidden fruit as the prize, oh, well done, bro, well done," he said, his gaze fixed hard on Castiel. If he noticed the shotgun Bobby had produced from nowhere and now had pointed at his head, he didn't say. "They won't let you keep this, you know."

"Hello, Gabriel, nice to see you too," Dean said harshly, wide-awake now. "No, in fact they will let us keep this, and it's fucking well got Michael's own seal of approval."

"Ex-cuse me?" Gabriel flat-out stared at Dean, and shit, the look on the archangel's face –

"Gabriel." Castiel's voice was quiet. "Dean speaks truth. And Michael himself bound grace to Dean's soul, just enough to let Dean fully feel our bond. Things in Heaven have – changed, it seems."

"Michael did this?" Gabriel scoffed, but Sam knew that look. He'd seen it once before, trapped in a ring of fire, fighting what it didn't want to admit. "Michael the "good son"? Never had a thought that Dad didn't put there? That Michael went and just decided to give the finger to one of Daddy's decrees? That Michael?"

"Gabriel," Castiel said again, standing up, his voice still quiet but thrumming with something that prickled across Sam's skin. "Look. See us."

Gabriel's lips parted and that look broke, splintered into something Sam found he didn't want to see. Time was when seeing the Trickster hurt was something he'd longed for, prayed for. But now, seeing Gabriel like that – it stabbed, like a knife in Sam's own chest. In a blink, Castiel was at Gabriel's elbow as the archangel turned away from them. In the next blink, they were gone. Sam looked over at Dean, expecting…not what he saw in his brother's face. "Dean?"

"They're – talking," Dean said softly. "They'll be back, or Cas will, at least."

Wow, so this bond thing made for telepathy, too? "So, you know anything about this?"

"Gabriel…he had a, a husband once too, Cas said." Dean closed his eyes. "When God said it wasn't allowed anymore, Gabriel had to be first in line for a divorce. Cas said breaking the bond…hurts. Like, the –" he swallowed. "The 'Dad losing Mom' kind of hurt. For a long time."

Bobby whistled softly. "That'd explain a few things, maybe."

Dean nodded. "That's what I thought." He looked drawn, exhaustion washing back in as the adrenaline faded, and Sam scooted over on their shared log until he was barely pressed against his brother's side. A minute or two later Dean pressed back, and Sam ignored it, because that was what they did.

"Dude, you should rest," he said anyway, quietly.

"When Cas gets back."

No belligerence, just a simple statement of fact, and Sam nodded, because it was what he'd expected. He listened to the voice of the fire and the sounds of Bobby cracking the shotgun and getting another beer, things that said "home" to him. "You think Gabriel'll make trouble?" The thought made Sam a bit queasy, for more reasons than he wanted to admit.

"Nah, not getting that," Dean said slowly. "He just –" He straightened, and Sam heard the not-noise of wings. Castiel appeared nearly where he'd disappeared, and walked around the fire toward Dean. A second later, there was another not-noise and Gabriel was there as well. He looked, well, weary. Something – maybe that knife – twisted in Sam's chest. He opened his mouth – and stopped. He wanted to say – what the fuck could he say?

Bobby beat him to it.

"Gabriel." A flash, and Gabriel caught the beer bottle Bobby had just tossed at him. His expression was nothing Sam could identify, but his eyes looked haunted. "Siddown, angel," Bobby said gruffly. "Take a load off. Have a drink."

"You'd trust me to drink with you. Why?" Gabriel asked flatly.

"Because family," Bobby nodded at Castiel, who'd resumed his seat at Dean's other side, "just vouched for you. You want a drink tonight, you're welcome here."

Gabriel stared, first at Bobby, then at Castiel. A chair appeared to Sam's right and Gabriel sank into it, popped the cap on his beer and flung it into the darkness, and proceeded to drink about half the bottle down without a pause.

Dean retrieved a beer from the cooler between his and Sam's feet and handed it to Sam, then took another for himself. "To family," he said, popping the cap with his ring. "To those we got and those we lost, and being here to remember them."

"L'chaim," Sam said, touching his bottle to Dean's, and from the corner of his eye he saw Gabriel shift. Sam looked over at him. One of Gabriel's eyebrows was raised. Sam just shrugged. "'S still better than the alternative. Been there, done that. Didn't like it."

Gabriel nodded, the motion slight and nearly lost to the darkness. "Family," he murmured, and drained the rest of his bottle.

The fire had burned low, and Sam lay on the ground with his head resting on the log, staring up at the stars. Dean and Castiel had long since gone in. Dean had fallen all the way asleep, head parked on Castiel's shoulder, and Gabriel had said something to Castiel that Sam didn't understand. It might have been Enochian; Sam thought he recognized a few words, and made a mental note to ask Bobby. Castiel had obviously understood it, though, and whatever it was had teased out the beginnings of Castiel's slow, rare smile before the angel had magicked himself and Dean into the house.

Bobby had turned in next, with the expected admonishment to be sure the fire was out. Which left Sam.

And, shockingly, Gabriel.

"I'm sorry," Sam said finally, words falling muted into the darkness.

Gabriel had been staring out at God only knew what, but his gaze shifted back to Sam. "For what?"

"For your…I mean, Cas said that you…"

Gabriel's expression thinned and he looked back out at the night. "Castiel's got a big mouth."

"No, not really," Sam disagreed. "He just said that there was…someone you loved, and that you were…"

"Cracked apart when Dad changed the rules?" Gabriel tilted his bottle back again and swallowed. Sam had lost track of how long Gabriel had been drinking from it, but he had to have sucked down at least a few gallons of whatever it was by now. "That's the short story."

Sam didn't think they were close enough that he could ask for the long story. But he found that he wanted to be. And that – ached a bit. "Maybe…things could be different. Y'know. Now."

"Different."

God, he didn't quite know how to deal with a Trickster who wasn't all snark and arrogance. And that ached too, and he didn't know why. "Maybe you and your – ex could – talk? Put things back together."

A snort, and Gabriel's eyes closed. "Oh, he'd have been willing to talk, mercy was always his gig." A corner of his mouth quirked. "And he never was one to shoot the Messenger."

He. Past tense. And angels were sexless, of course Sam knew that, but still – Sam swallowed and crossed mental fingers. "What happened?"

For a while there was only the sound of the fire, and the neek-breek of night things.

"His name," Gabriel said eventually, "was Hesediel."

Hesediel.

"Lucifer hit the skids, and Dad hit the roof," Gabriel continued. "Heaven's treasure lost, so there'd be no more, He said. There'd be nothing more important in our existence than Him, so - bang! Instant angelic divorce. Archangel bonds severed first, lucky us." He opened his eyes and took another drink, a long one this time. "When we'd – recovered a little, we got to do the glad deed unto others."

"Recovered?"

"Think 'sawing off your arm with a butter knife and half your soul with it'." Gabriel stared fixedly at the fire. "Raphael was never the same."

"Shit," Sam whispered.

Gabriel's mouth twitched. "Dad drowned the world once, Sam, when it pissed him off. He wasn't much into mercy back then, and after He unbonded us, Hesediel wasn't much into it either.

"After that…we still spoke, but being near each other was too much. Hesediel left, went to the garrisons, tried to be the soldier he wasn't created to be. I stayed, tried not to watch my brothers fight. He died in the next war. A big chunk of Heaven's Mercy died with him." Another swallow from the bottle. "I left after that."

"Witness protection," Sam said, remembering a warehouse and a circle of fire. His throat was tight.

"Yeah, well," Gabriel said, "They wanted to talk to me, but I sure the fuck didn't want to talk to them." He snorted again, softly. "Hells, I don't know why I'm talking to you."

Sam levered himself upright. "I'm sorry, Gabriel," he said again, as sincerely as he knew how, because really, shit. Then, awkwardly: "You must have loved him very much."

And the oddest thing happened: Gabriel looked at him and smiled, faint but real. "It was a really damn long time ago, Sam, even by my yardstick. I'm pissed now mostly for angels like Castiel, who never even had a chance. But with Dad still gone…if Michael's really managed to winch his head out of his ass about it, then maybe it's finally been long enough."

Sam woke up to soft breeze and sunlight and not, somehow, to the expected hangover. He was in bed in the room he was using at Bobby's, but he sure didn't remember getting into it. Hell, he didn't remember getting upstairs and stripping down.

He rolled over and sat up, then levered himself out and went to peer out the window. That side of Bobby's property looked like it should, cars and firepit and logs and the coolers for the beer.

And the chair Gabriel had magicked up.

Warmth rolled through Sam's chest. He hadn't dreamed it, then. Gabriel really had stayed, talked to him. Confided in him, even. That was kind of scary. And exciting.

Sam turned to look for his pants and a flash of brown caught his eye. Frowning, he reached down and picked up the beer bottle that sat exactly in the middle of the nightstand. The label was half-peeled, like Gabriel's had been. It was open, which didn't surprise him. It also felt full, which did. Sam sniffed at it and pulled back, eyebrows going up, because there was no way that was beer in there. Whatever it was smelled – sweet? Sam took a very tiny, very cautious taste.

Flavor exploded over his tongue, honeyed liquid sunshine, and Sam closed his eyes in bliss. This was what Gabriel had been drinking? It was a bit like the mead he'd tried once, when he'd gone to a renaissance faire one time while he'd been at Stanford. But this – man, this had to be the real deal.

An hour or so later Sam pushed aside his laptop and the books he'd been researching from and leaned back in his chair. Hesediel – angel of benevolence and mercy. And freedom. Aspects also including, depending on the sources, things like well-being and satisfaction. Pleasure.

Sam rolled the beer bottle between his fingers for a moment and then took the last sip from it, savoring. Bransg limlal, Gabriel had said to Castiel, at least in part. Guard your treasure.

There was a tangled mess of feeling beneath Sam's heart, and it had "Gabriel" stamped all over it.

"Thanks for sharing, Gabriel," Sam said softly to the air, which seemed to be listening. "Don't be a stranger."

finis

Hesediel (Zadkhiel) – angels whose aspects are freedom, benevolence, mercy, well-being, satisfaction, pleasure, affluent life, euphoric

limlal – treasure (enochian)

link to original story, True Colors: http://morganoconner.livejournal.com/59228.html#cutid1