Gabriel and Castiel
"Easy, Cas," Dean said gruffly. Sam stood on the other side of him, each of the angel's arms wrapped around the other's neck. Castiel's head hung down, blood all over him and his eyes flickered as he tried to keep them open.
"What happened?" Bobby asked, standing up from the table, staring at Castiel.
"Friggin angel attacked him," Dean said as he and Sam lay Castiel down on the couch.
Dean tried to take off Castiel's blood drenched trench coat but the angel screamed in pain. "Looks like more damage was done in him than on him, boys," Bobby said when Castiel had relaxed somewhat. "I don't know how we're going to fix this."
"There must be something Bobby, look at him," Sam protested.
"Cas? Cas!" Dean hit him on the cheeks lightly as his eyes started to close.
Castiel mumbled in Enochian before weakly saying, "Gabriel." He coughed, a broken sound, and his head fell back, eyes shut.
Dean called Castiel's name a few times after, but he was completely passed out.
"Dean? What'd he say?"
Dean stood up, swiping a palm down his face angrily, muttering below his breath. "I ain't calling him."
"Who?"
"Gabriel," Dean spat.
Sam sighed. "Dean, come on, Cas thinks he can help," he said.
"Listen Sammy, Cas… Cas is hurt, alright? He doesn't know what he's saying, he isn't thinking clearly."
"Look, Dean, I know you don't like him, I don't either, but we can't deal with this. This is angel stuff Dean."
"I'm not calling that son of a bitch. Not happening. We'll research it, we'll find a way."
Bobby sighed heavily. "Dean, real angel lore is difficult to find, it could take ages to find an answer, and Cas doesn't have much time."
"Yeah Dean, and Gabriel is an archangel, he could help Cas, for all we know he could snap his fingers and put Cas right," Sam said patiently, trying to reason with his brother.
Dean paced, shaking his head the whole time.
"Look son, we have two choices: get an archangel, or page through musty old books for information that might not even be there."
Dean stopped and sighed, looking up at Bobby. He then turned to Sam, who nodded, and hung his head. "Gabriel, you stupid son of a bitch, get your feathery ass at Bobby's and your angel mojo better be in good shape."
The three of them looked around, waiting. Seconds ticked by, punctuated with Castiel's uneven breathing.
Dean was about to start yelling when there was the slightest breeze.
"Hello, Dean-o." Gabriel grinned at them, pulling a lollipop out of his mouth. His grin fell from his face when he looked past them and he dropped the lollipop, disappearing from where he stood against the doorway. Dean and Sam blinked, looking around and saw Gabriel kneeling next to the couch, a hand on Castiel's forehead.
"What happened?" he asked, his face full of horror, giving the brothers and Bobby a glance before turning back his eyes at Castiel.
"Got in a fight with one of your stupid flying sacks of shit," Dean snapped.
"Dean," Sam said, giving him a stern look; they were Gabriel's brothers after all. Dean huffed, sitting down on a chair.
"Can you fix him?" Bobby asked.
Gabriel pressed two fingers to Castiel's forehead, sending him into a state of unconsciousness and turned to face them.
"He's hurt. Bad. I'm going to need holy oil and some time alone with him," Gabriel said.
"I'll go get that oil," Bobby said, leaving to go into the basement.
"Hell no. If you think I'm leaving him with you, you're out of your goddamn mind," Dean said, advancing towards Castiel.
Gabriel stood so quickly Dean didn't even see it happen. His eyes flashed red and an unearthly glow came from him. Thunder cracked and all six of wings spread behind him, only the shadows appearing on the wall.
"Stay away from him!" Gabriel roared, his voice deep and it rumbled the entire house, several bottles in the room breaking.
Dean stumbled backwards and Sam rushed to his brother's side, an arm on his shoulder to stop Dean from doing anything he would definitely regret.
Gabriel's eyes went to gold as he relaxed himself, but his stance in front of his younger brother didn't falter. "I will take care of him. Leave."
"Dean. Dean, come on!" Sam had to pull Dean out of the room, not because Dean was resisting, but because he was too struck with awe and fear, though would never admit it, at the sliver of the archangel's true form. After years of Gabriel never being serious and acting like such a human, it never occurred to him just how powerful he really was.
Gabriel sank to his knees next to his brother, feeling his Grace ebbing out of him. "Oh Cassie," he sighed. Bobby walked in with a jar of holy oil. "That'll be enough?"
Gabriel nodded. "Wait outside, will you?"
"Sure thing." Bobby felt the house vibrate earlier and after spending ages of leafing through angel lore, he knew how powerful archangels could be and he was perfectly fine with just reading about it; demonstrations were completely unneeded.
Gabriel snapped his fingers, the clothes disappearing off of Castiel and he dipped his hands on the holy oil, rubbing it all over him. He looked at Castiel's face and sighed. "Sorry, little brother."
He dipped his hands into Castiel, feeling his Grace, which was torn and ripped, scorched and holes in it. Fragments floated around, slowly breaking into smaller pieces. Gabriel let some of his own Grace flow into Castiel and he began the tedious and meticulous work of mending Castiel's Grace, which would have been excruciating to Castiel, had he not stilled his nerves.
Hours upon hours passed and Gabriel could feel his strength fade, he wasn't anywhere near done. Once he fixed Castiel's Grace, it would heal him by itself, even though Castiel was unconscious.
Gabriel worked into the night, feeling his shoulders sag with fatigue and keeping his eyes open became a struggle. His fingers moved sluggishly inside of Castiel and his head fell against his chest. He pushed on, piecing together Castiel as fast as possible, which wasn't very fast at all.
Dawn broke and Gabriel sealed the last bit of his Grace together. With a cry, he fell backwards, unconscious on the carpet.
Dean, Sam and Bobby rushed in, hearing the shout and Dean knelt over Gabriel, trying to wake him. Sam placed Castiel's trench coat over him then brought down an old air bed, which Bobby helped Dean move Gabriel to lie on.
"Takes a lot to tire out an archangel," Bobby remarked as they watched Gabriel on the air bed.
Dean and Sam hummed their agreement then turned their gaze to Castiel, who looked loads better; the dried blood was gone from his face and he looked peaceful, resting on the couch.
Gabriel stirred about an hour later, pushing himself up from the air bed. Dean looked at him; he was the only one there since Bobby was in the basement, combing through books trying to find some spell to help out a hunter and Sam was out getting lunch.
"You alright?" he asked.
"Were you worried about me, Dean –o?" Even though his eyes were barely open and he looked weak, he still managed to get on Dean's nerves.
Gabriel crawled over to the couch and placed a hand on Castiel's heart. His concerned frown relaxed and he let out a breath.
"Is he okay?" Dean asked.
"He's healing, should be awake in a couple of hours," Gabriel replied, turning around and leaning his head into his brother's side, sighing deeply.
"What'd you do to him?"
"I stuck my hands inside of him and fixed his Grace," Gabriel replied bluntly, his eyes closing.
"Took you a pretty long time, you were out cold when you finished."
"You try putting together a human by connecting his molecules."
Dean's lower lip jutted out in amazement when he realized what Gabriel did. "You couldn't take breaks with that, huh?"
"Course you could."
Dean frowned. "Then why didn't you? When we walked past the doorway and saw you working you looked like a moving corpse." The door opened and Sam walked in, dumping Styrofoam containers onto the kitchen table, but neither of them heard him come in, or at least acknowledged him.
Gabriel opened his eyes and turned his head to look at Dean. "Tell me, Dean-o, if Sam was hurt and almost dead and you could fix him, would you take any breaks?"
Dean bit his lip. "No, I wouldn't."
"Same thing. Cassie is my little brother, and just like I took care of him when he was a fledgling, I'm taking care of him now."
"You took care of him when he was little?"
"Course I did. He stopped at nothing to find out what I was doing, talking about, who I talked with… biggest pain in the ass I ever had," Gabriel said fondly.
"Know what you mean. Christ, Sammy had a habit of falling down everywhere when he started walking and he'd never stop bawling the place down."
"You think that's bad? Try having a baby brother who just learned how to fly and every time you turned your back the poor idiot had gotten himself stuck in a tree." Dean laughed loudly.
Sam, who stood in the kitchen, smiled slightly to himself, not even knowing he fell down that often when he was a toddler.
"Little brothers… pain in the ass but I'd give my life in a heartbeat for Sammy." Dean sighed heavily. "If anything happened to him-"
"You'd never forgive yourself," Gabriel finished. There was a short silence as the two older brothers thought about their younger sibling.
"I remember once Cassie cried for hours. All the angels in the Garrison were looking for him; all you could hear were these sniffles. Eventually we found him trapped in a cloud."
Dean burst out laughing and Gabriel chuckled at the memory.
"If I remember correctly, you crashed into the Gates of Heaven when Lucifer was teaching you how to fly and there's still a dent in the bars." Castiel opened one eye to look at Gabriel.
"Cas!" Dean cried, getting up to go over to him. Gabriel turned his head to look at his brother.
"At least I didn't fall out of Heaven."
Castiel raised his eyebrows. "Yes, you did. If it wasn't for Lucifer grabbing you by your robe at the last second, you'd have fallen straight to earth."
"How do you know that anyway?"
"Michael told me."
Gabriel cursed his older brother under his breath. Dean looked at Castiel in confusion. "How long have you been awake?" he asked.
"Since Sam got in," Gabriel replied, turning his gaze to the doorway. Sam walked in, smiling sheepishly.
Gabriel and Dean looked at each other. "What'd I tell you? Little brothers always get in your business."
Dean and Sam went to eat and Gabriel stayed with his little brother. "Come on, we need to get your wings sorted out."
Castiel stood up, his limbs stiff from lying in the same position for so long, and sat between his brother's legs, spreading his wings out. They couldn't be fixed with Grace; this was something that had to be done manually. All his brothers and sisters would do it in Heaven; groom each other's wings.
Gabriel began to work the oil from Castiel's glands into the feathers, removing the blood and began the calming task of arranging his feathers. Sam and Dean returned, raising an eyebrow when they saw Gabriel seemingly playing with air.
A blush formed on Castiel's face and he squirmed, feeling uncomfortable even though Sam and Dean couldn't see his wings. They were very private and only his brothers and sisters saw each other's wings.
Gabriel didn't bother explaining anything to Sam and Dean; let them puzzle it out for a while.
One day later, Gabriel decided Castiel was good and he pulled his younger brother into a hug. "Take care baby brother," he said, before popping a Snickers bar into Castiel's mouth and disappearing.
Castiel took out the bar and sighed at the empty room. "I hate you, Gabriel," he said fondly.