Chapter 4
Title: how to get resurrected 101
Fandom: Supernatural
Paring(s): equal parts Sam/ Gabriel and Dean/Castiel
Beta: 1stBonesFan (I love you so much you are awesome)
A/N: To everyone who has reviewed: I love you so much I could just kiss you (but I wont unless you want me to.) Also I own nothing but the plot and my computer and what is left of my dignity. Umm…please keep reviewing it brings me joy. Also, I have school again now so my updates will probably be only once a week or something but I promise to keep this fic going. (I have the plot all thought out so I can't really stop.) Hope you like it.
p.s. Awkwardly typing this up sitting in the hallway of my school before class starts. I feel like I'm getting weird looks, but I'm probably not.
(Line of sweet dreams and rainbows and my physics class because most of this was typed up there)
Last time on Supernatural:
"I don't want to jump to any conclusions so Sammy can I see the print?" Gabriel asked, standing and waddling over to Sam, trying to keep the towel rapped around his waist. Once he was standing over him, Sam lifted the still damp towel off his burn, giving the archangel a good look at it.
All Gabriel said after a second of examining it was, "BALLS!"
And now the conclusion:
Once again, Dean felt like saying 'fuck it' and falling into bed. This time he refrained from shouting out and just collapsed head first into his springy hotel mattress, making little muffled noises that sounded suspiciously like whimpers or cussing or, most probably, a mix of both. Gabriel's outburst meant one thing and one thing only to Dean: more complications in his already fucked up life. Dean's slight outburst had drawn no attention from anyone in the room because they had all started to talk amongst themselves.
"What? Gabe, what?" was Sam's slightly panicked response to the archangel's outburst. Castiel's reaction was much more reserved as realization dawned on his face.
"You are tethered? To Sam?" Castiel said sounding almost shocked (but only almost) and looked expectantly at Gabriel. However, before the archangel could answer Castiel's question there was a second question thrown to both the angels in a muffled voice. "What's tethered mean?" Muffled because Dean's face was still buried in his hotel pillow.
Gabriel's head was tilted to the side looking at Sam's newest scar, not responding to Dean or Castiel, just staring intently at Sam's naked hip. It was making Sam rather uncomfortable and a little bit flustered. Castiel also ignored Dean's question, choosing instead to keep his attention on his brother.
Why, Sam?" Castiel asked, snapping Gabriel out of his staring contest with Sam's hip. "I mean, he has demon blood in him. Dean would have made a much more suitable host for your grace." Cas was completely unaware of how that sounded even as Dean and Sam both shot him that look that said 'Cas, why do you have to be so bad at social interaction!'
Gabriel chuckled some before answering his brother. "Come on, bro'. You should know that no human can bear the mark of two angels at the same time. Besides, maybe I just like Sam better." Gabriel then smirked devilishly at Sam, who, out of instinct, immediately covered his hip back up with the still damp towel.
"Dean is marked? Who-?" Castiel said cutting himself off half way through the question. This time he sounded (maybe a little more than) slightly peeved that his hunter was bearing some other angels' mark, though none of it showed on his face. Everyone in the room was staring at Cas in disbelieving silence. The silence lasted a couple of really awkward minutes before Dean finally got up and walked over to Castiel; who had, in the silence, felt rather uncomfortable and stupid, because it was apparent that everyone in the room knew something that he did not.
"Um...Cas," Dean said quietly, "isn't this your mark?" Dean accompanied the question by turning slightly to the side so his handprint was facing the angel. Castiel could almost see his own energy rolling around and glowing from the handprint. 'How had I not known I was tethered to Dean?' Castiel kept asking himself silently until Gabriel answered for him.
"Maybe 'cause he's had it since he was raised from perdition, you never noticed. It was his natural state of being to you." Castiel barely glanced at his brother ,n acknowledgment. He was to busy looking at his power swirling through Dean and, before he knew what he was doing. he had begun to reach out to touch, to feel the power of Heaven that was trapped in his charge. As he reached out, however, Dean walked away, obviously uncomfortable under the angel's scrutiny.
Sam finally broke the tension in the room by repeating the question his brother had asked earlier. "So what does tethered mean exactly?" Sam looked from angel to archangel and back again expectantly. It was Castiel who answered first, still staring at Dean who had gone off into a corner and was now pulling a shirt on to hide his mark from Castiel. He was feeling uncomfortable having the angel looking at him with such an intense longing. Once the mark was hidden, however, the angel seemed to break out of his trance and turned to look at Sam before speaking.
"Being tethered to an angel is a little like a demon deal, only backwards." This answer did nothing but confuse the humans in the room more than they already where and Gabriel could sense it. Sighing and summoning himself a Kit-Kat bar, he began to explain in a way Sam and Dean would understand.
"OK. Leave it to the Angel of Thursday to make things sound wayyyyyyyyyy more confusing and cryptic than they need to be." Gabriel walked back over to the motel chair, still holding up his towel, and sat down with an 'oomph.' "First and foremost, being tethered to an angel means you are a resilient and strong human," Gabriel started explaining, looking into Sam's eyes maybe a little too much. "Obviously both of you thick headed Winchester boys fall into that category. You need to be strong because being tethered means you are pretty much channeling Heaven's power all the time. This makes you almost like a shot of steroids to the angel who marked you. We can basically use you two to recharge our angel mojo. Interesting no?" (The last bit was said with a French accent.)
During his brothers' explanation, Castiel had turned back to looking at Dean, who spoke, cutting off whatever it was Gabriel was going to say next. "So we're like really specific Duracell batteries full of angel juice? I didn't sign up for this!" Dean sounded more than a little ruffled.
"Hey, neither did I!" Sam said somewhat indignantly, glaring at Gabriel who held his hands up in mock surrender.
"Actually, this could be a very good thing," Castiel said, always the voice of reason.
"Really? How? Enlighten the rest of us, please." Dean snapped sarcastically, tired and feeling a bit used.
Shooting Dean a look that said 'you should respect me,' Castiel continued. "Until now, I had thought that I had been cut off from Heaven's power, and it has weakened me quite a bit. You, Dean, are like a direct line to Heaven's energy. Being able to recharge, as you would put it, would be very helpful to us."
Sam nodded in agreement before looking at Gabriel in question. "So what did this have to do with you coming back?"
"Well, my Sammy-boy, when Cassie here said it was like a contract he wasn't wrong." He paused to take a bite of his candy bar. "Part of the contract is that an angel must protect their charge, no matter the hardship. If the charge calls, the angel is obligated to answer, even if we're dead." Sam got a thoughtful look on his face as Gabriel spoke.
"How long?" Sam asked, not looking at Gabriel, still thinking hard.
"'How long' what, Samyo?"
"How long have we been tethered? Like, when did it happen? Because the hand print didn't show up until just now."
Dean and Cas sat down on the other motel bed, also curious and looking at the archangel expectantly. "Jeez! Do I have to do all the talking tonight or what? Well, humans already have a certain amount of heavenly energy in them when they're born and they crave more, so when humans meet angels they soak up as much energy off the angel as they can. And if they ask for the angels' help, and the angel is willing, BINGO! You have been here by tethered!"
"What else does being tethered entail?" Dean asked, glancing at Castiel as he said the word, before looking back at the trickster. Surprisingly though, it was Castiel who answered.
"The bond works both ways. It means if we ask for help from the humans, they feel obligated to do so even if they would normally rebel against helping." Castiel shot Dean a pointed look before continuing. "It also means the human is guarantied a spot in heaven and they will age more slowly than normal. In the few cases of tethering I have ever heard of, the human could live up to around nine hundred years if nothing interferes with their life."
Dean and Sam just sat for a minute letting that sink in before looking at each other with looks of shock on their faces.
"Is that it?" Dean asked, half-afraid that it wasn't.
"Yes, that is all. Bonds are extremely rare. I can only think of three I have ever heard of. Gabriel?" Castiel looked at his brother for confirmation of his facts.
"Yup, three. Uno, dos, tres." Gabriel said, ticking off with his fingers as he counted.
"Why are they so rare?" Sam asked under his breath, not intending for anyone to hear it, but he got a response anyway.
"Because an angel is usually too much of a selfish bastard to be at a human's beck and call," Gabriel answered. "That and angels really aren't on earth that much so the interaction necessary to make a bond just doesn't happen to begin with."
(line of cheesy horror movies and salty delicious buttery popcorn shared with friends)
Cas felt Dean slump into him and was unsurprised to look over and see his hunter asleep, still sitting up, and pushed up next to the angel so he wouldn't fall over. Gently as he could, the angel laid the exhausted hunter over to the other side on the bed before lifting Dean's legs onto the bed in what looked to be a somewhat more comfortable position.
"You should sleep as well, Sam," Castiel said before disappearing with a flap of wings, leaving only Sam, Gabriel and an unconcious Dean in the room.
"Night, night, Sammy," Gabe said, snapping his fingers and disappearing as well, leaving before Sam could get out his, "It's Sam."
A/N2: This is shorter than I wanted it to be and I think it's a little slow but I hope you liked it anyway and will tell me if you did.