Title: Prayers

Summary: When an angel is born, they are coded with a human, that they would give their everything for. Their love begins the day they meet and how rapidly it grows. Sam watches as Castiel discovers he may have found his person, whilst reflecting on Gabriel's death and hopelessly praying to the fallen angel. Could his prayers somehow reach and save him, in death? /sabriel&destiel, au/

A/N: second time typing this up. thanks fanfiction docs.

I really liked the idea of the angels being destined to someone, and their humans loving them too. Bound by fate, yeah. And then I saw the posts on tumblr about Sam's prayers healing Gabe and I just really had to do this ok bye

This will have a few chapters if it's liked so

also more destiel will appear later don't worry

Gabe,

Um… hi?

This is ridiculous. I am ridiculous. Dean says that he does this frequently – he prays to Cas and Cas hears him, even if he's unable to respond. But maybe he's just trying to pull one over on me. I want to appreciate that as our normality, but this just doesn't feel like the time for it. Guess he's just really fed up with me, and I wouldn't blame him.

He still hasn't figured out how much time you spent around. He actually still thinks I'm behind the pink thong incident, by the way.

He says you're dead, and shrugs it off, and I'm here thinking of all the pranks you pulled on Dean. It's pitiful Gabe. Just pitiful. Maybe I'm a bitch after all.

Really, Gabe. The joke is old. It's already been two days? Admit that the prank has gone stale. You risked your life to save us, we appreciate it, but you aren't dead. You have Dean fooled, maybe had me fooled for a bit. Don't you have any pranks to play that don't involve faking your death? Turn the Impala pink or something.

Am I not messed up enough? Do you want me to have the guilt of a fallen archangel on my hands, too?

"How you doin', champ?"

Dean pressed his lips together tightly, shifting his gaze from the road to Sam for a brief moment, and then back again. Sam's head had been raised for a few minutes already, proving that he was indeed awake – the older Winchester just wasn't sure of how to go around talking to him about this without it dissolving completely into a talk about feelings. If it really came down to it, he would, but how was he supposed to understand Sam's mourning – mourning, like a goddamn widow – over the man who had killed him so many times and caused them so much trouble?

"Huh?" Sam glanced over, startled. His hands ran over his worn blue jeans, and Dean resisted the urge to smack one and stop the motion. Fucking hell, talking to his brother was making him anxious. "Fine, Dean."

"Yeah, fine." Dean rolled his eyes, before glancing behind him as he began to merge into the next lane. "Fine my ass."

Sam merely shrugged again in response, and the other occupant of the car pursed his lips, impatiently. Sam was usually the one talking up confiding in each other, but he rarely did so himself, when it really mattered.

Hypocritical bitch.

"Sam." He said sharply, watching his younger brother jump and look over with unfocused eyes. All at once, Dean began to consider pulling the Impala over to the shoulder of the highway. The idea of beating sense into his younger brother's skull suddenly seemed very nice to him, and much easier than talking it out.

But that was just his way of doing things. It was likely to piss Sam off more than anything, and as if he needed it on top of his current woe-is-me crap.

"What?" Sam asked, sighing. Dean shot him a pointed look, and Sam merely glared back, shaking his head.

"What the hell has gotten into you?" He demanded, furiously. "Sure as hell ain't the fact that old Luci popped out of his cage, is it?"

"'Course it is, what else could it be?"

"Why don't you tell me, Sam? If it were the apocalypse and that shitstorm we started, we'd be discussing it, trying to plan for something even though we probably wouldn't come up with anything. Instead," Dean snapped, glaring over again. "You're distancing again, moping to yourself like a broken-hearted bitch."

Sam grit his teeth, as his brother turned his gaze back to the road.

"Gabriel," He admitted after a moment, in the same, breathy way he always did. His hand ran along his chin, covering his mouth. "I guess I'm-"

"Playing the worried girlfriend of your monster pet?" Dean finished, getting a glare in return.

"He did something good for us, out there." He reminded, bitterly. The older nodded after a moment, though he pursed his lips. Gabriel had allowed him to get Sam out safely.

"Look, you've seen first-hand how powerful he is." He said calmly. "He's probably fine."

"But wouldn't he tell us?" Sam prompted, causing Dean's eyebrow to rise.

"Why would he? He didn't before."

Sam blanched suddenly. He'd forgotten that Dean didn't know about the short-lived friendship that had started between Gabriel and himself. He didn't know why himself, but the archangel only showed up when his brother wouldn't notice; when Dean was sleeping, or when he was out on a food run. Once, he'd appeared and healed Sam's injuries while Dean was showering. Sam had lied through his teeth that it was Castiel who had done it, and escaped further question.

"Yeah, guess not. Common decency, maybe?" He muttered. His brother barked out a laugh, shaking his head.

"Gabriel? Right."

Sam shrugged again, lapsing into silence. He didn't look any better, AND he had resumed the anxious hand motions.

"Look, Sammy." He said finally, agitation creeping up again. "Why don't you just pray to him?"

"Pray to him…?" Sam's brow furrowed.

"Yeah." He said, tone flat. "Like I do with Cas, they can't respond, but it lets Cas know what's going on when he's not able to pop in."

Sam's face actually lit up a bit. Like a fucking light bulb. Dean closed his eyes exasperatedly – how the hell was his brother so worked up over the archangel's condition?

"Yeah, I should thank him."

"Your good boy act is sickening." Dean muttered, leaning to turn up the radio. Sam pointedly ignored him, bowing his head.

Why was Dean the one stuck with taking things seriously?

Gabe,

We walked into trouble again today.

The hunt was supposed to be one demon, so we were naturally unprepared when a total of seven appeared. We only had my demon's knife, so we got torn up pretty badly until Cas arrived. I'm still bleeding, and Cas is too busy healing all of Dean's little booboos.

I mean, it's not that I don't want him healed – he's my brother, after all. It'd just be nice having someone look out for me like that.

I do sound like a bitch, don't I?

"Sam."

Sam wrenched his eyes open, letting out a small hiss. From his position current position – discarded like trash and curled on his side, cradling fresh wounds – he could only see the angel's shoes, and the bottom of his pant legs.

"Dean will be relieved that you are alive." Castiel said placidly, turning on his heel. Sam's eyes opened again, and he quickly forced himself to move, trying to get into a sitting position. "I should report this news to him immediately."

"Cas, wait-" Sam's voice was hoarse, so that words sounded odd to even himself. Castiel paused, glancing back at him. The angel was so impersonal when it came to him, but Sam couldn't take it to heart – he had a feeling that the other had always been here specifically for Dean.

"Help me up first?" He pleaded. Castiel nodded slowly, bending to grip onto Sam's arms and then hefting him to his feet. Another hiss escaped the hunter, as his body painfully reminded him that he was in fact injured. "Where is Dean?" He asked through clenched teeth. Blue eyes turned towards him yet again, as Sam righted himself and tried to support himself with his current injuries.

"He is immediately outside of the doors. I believe he was trying to fight his way to you, and got incapacitated along the way."

Castiel had disappeared before Sam could comment again. He moaned lightly, beginning to make his way towards the door.

"A'ight there, Sammy?" Dean forced through his tightened jaw as Sam appeared. He was bleeding just as heavily as Sam was; he could see the blood beginning to seep through what part of his shirt remained.

Sam nodded his confirmation, setting himself on the ground again with a low grunt of pain. "Nothin' I won't live through." He chuckled.

"I have found your younger brother. Allow me to heal you now." Castiel butted into their small talk, moving to stand beside Dean and look down at him almost anxiously, blue eyes locked on the injury.

"I'll be fine. Get Sam first."

Castiel's normally peaceful expression now curled into a frown. Oh. Cas must have come to find him because Dean didn't want to sit around and potentially let Sam die.

"I'll be fine, Castiel. They aren't life-ending. Heal Dean, okay?"

The angel nodded respectfully at him, beginning to crouch over his brother's sitting form. His fingers gently ran along the skin, pouring Grace into every wound, beginning to heal him and close them up. He could see Castiel's features curling into a smile – something that grew less rare, the more time he spent with Dean.

Sam watched them, watched Castiel tenderly care for his brother, watched the blue eyes meet green, and watched the calm look that never ceased to surprise him slowly form on his brother's face.

God, the eye-sex was tender, loving, and unbearable.

He remembered the time Gabriel had healed him – more slowly than Castiel would, making jokes to distracted him from any pains. He'd felt serene. Was that how Dean and his angel felt?

Not that Gabriel is my angel.

He glanced upwards briefly, eyes narrowing at the harsh sunlight, before he dipped his head again, slipping into prayer yet another time.

Gabe,

Castiel says you're dead.

I don't believe him.

Sam turned Metallica up louder, gripping tightly onto the steering wheel as though that would ease the burning in his eyes.

Taking the Impala was a bad idea.

He couldn't drive fast enough to slip back into denial.

Gabriel,

Dean keeps calling it ridiculous, my praying to you. Wasn't he the one who gave me the idea in the first place? Castiel thinks I'm beginning to grow insane, so Dean's jumping on me as a result.

And he calls me the bitch.

"It's not healthy!"

Sam shot him a pointed look, fingers pausing above the key to his laptop. He had just been trying to research – damn Dean's awful timing.

"Nothing about our life is healthy." He muttered to himself, fingers beginning to move again. "And besides, what harm will it do?"

"Talking to people who no longer exist?"

The younger hunter's jaw clenched again and he shook his head, unwilling to argue. Maybe because he wasn't sure himself why he kept hopelessly praying to Gabriel, or why he was still grieving. Their friendship had been a barely formed wreck.

Gabe,

Just come back, please.

Sam glanced out of the Impala's window, watching scenery slowly pass by as he hid shaking hands and glistening eyes from his brother.

He prayed more, and more, and more. He kept mentioning everything that happened every day, he kept begging him to return. The grief never left, and in fact grew stronger. But Gabriel never responded.

For a while, it had no thought.

It wasn't a being; it was just the lingering pieces of one, trapped within a never-ending darkness. Perhaps people would have thought there was a better end for its previous self, a special place for its kind. But it merely ceased to exist.

Sometimes, it seemed to feel little tugs. As if the remnants of what it had been were drawn towards something. It could not think, but what was left of it followed the tugs absentmindedly.

As it moved, it was given the ability to hear, the name Gabe repeated pleadingly. Each time more desperate. It could not recognize the name, it could not recognize the voice. But it had sped up in the same absentminded manner, being pulled through the emptiness it resided in as though that were its purpose, should it have one.

Slowly, the fragments of its being formed together. Thought returned to it, he began to form, his urges, he likes, his reason for existence. They all returned to him, flooding him. His grace burned him, like fire, and he prayed to have it stopped, cried out viciously. It seemed to cut at him as it sewed his pieces back together, and even once he returned to being, it didn't stop, his cries didn't stop.

Then he was thrust from the darkness.

The light hurt him too. Everything was hurting him, the rocks digging into the tender new flesh, the pounding of his heart, the movements of his blood through him. He clawed desperately at the ground, seeking release.

Gabriel lived.

so i created a thing

tell me how you feel about thing pls