Work Text:
Gadriel knows about imprisonment. He has existed for longer than a human can imagine; his lifespan is neigh eternal and he has spent the largest part of that time in a cell. Longing for freedom. Longing for his brethren and his father’s love, and for the creatures on Earth that were only just taking their first steps when he was cast into the deepest dungeon of Heaven. He lost it all that moment; lost all touch with the world, either world. Any world. Everything that happened after his downfall was just fragments of stories for him. Echoes of history trapped between the walls of his prison.
He knows imprisonment. He knows it well enough not to wish it on anyone else, least of all one who doesn’t deserve it. He knows it too well to allow it to happen to him ever again. He would go to oblivion before he went back to prison.
Death is a blessing in comparison. For a human, at least – they know nothing about how blessed they are. Death means peace and happiness forever, in a heaven that is now a haven without control and observation. Kevin Tran will be reunited with his loved ones. He will not mourn his time on Earth that was shadowed by so much suffering in his final years.
Gadriel knows this is true. He needs this knowledge to be able to do what he does. Murder doesn’t come easy to him. He is a companion of creation. It is not in his nature to take a life.
He does what he needs to do. To avoid imprisonment. To avoid his end.
There is no heaven for angels, not after they are destroyed. Gadriel will end his life before he gives up his freedom, but he doesn’t want to die. He wants to live. He wants to exist, in this world he has been cut off from for aeons. He would have lived for this world if they had let him. Now he wants to experience it before he must go, in all its beauty and flaws.
And he knows about the flaws, even if he has been separated from the world for almost as long as it existed. He knows them through the torn and jagged landscape of Sam Winchester’s mind. Sam, who knows all about the flaws, the ugly marks, the cruelty and the indifference. Who lived among the monsters of this world and was left in pieces for it. In a way, Sam was his guide through the world as shaped by mankind, with his memories and his living of his life. Gadriel knows this human child so well now and it pains him, sometimes, that Sam will never know him. He had thought to change that when the time came, when Sam learning of his existence would no longer endanger Sam’s own, but… no. Too late, now. Sam is gone.
Gadriel was content just to exist, to heal and to shelter, before. He had not wished to be drawn into the conflict brewing all around him and forced to choose a side, but it happened anyway, and choose a side he did.
He thought the prophet would be the first casualty of the choice he made, but that was naïve. Perhaps he can be excused, after such a long time in prison, that he sometimes fails to see the obvious. He can excuse Kevin’s murder, even though it pains him. Kevin is better off, and his death was necessary; he was too much of a danger. Sam’s destruction was equally necessary because Gadriel could not risk being rejected, but there is no justification here beyond pragmatism. Sam is not better off. To keep him from interfering, Gadriel had no choice but to place his soul in the part of his subconscious that is forever filled with torture and agony.
He has always detested the excuses of his brethren who said that the ends justified the means.
It’s worse because Gadriel saw it as his obligation to keep Sam safe. He made a promise to the boy’s brother. He devoted much time and energy to healing Sam so he could one day live without the angel inside him and then he negated it all in one moment. It seems like such a waste.
But the obligation goes deeper than that. Gadriel is forever bound to this world. He would have gladly devoted his life to keeping it safe. Sam did it in his stead, in his absence. He prevented Gadriel’s brother Lucifer from taking over, paying a terrible price for it, and for that, Gadriel owes him.
It is not without irony that it was Sam’s defeat of Lucifer that made Gadriel take such extreme measures to keep him locked away. If Sam could regain control from the Devil himself, he can overpower a weakened and fallen angel. And it is the consequences of Sam’s victory over Lucifer that made this act of necessity so easy to execute.
Sam has been in Hell with Lucifer and Michael, and they tore him to shreds. The only reason why he has been able to function is that that part of his personal history has been sealed away deep inside him. Millennia of relentless suffering safely contained so they had little influence on Sam’s mind, but not completely cut off. Such a thing would be impossible. A soul cannot be divided into pieces.
It serves Gadriel now, as it creates the perfect cage for a soul that cannot be allowed to go free. It was easy to take hold of Sam and push him there, despite the fight he put up. It was as if something in there reached out and pulled the boy in. Like that was where he belonged.
Gadriel tries not to marvel on the depth of his betrayal. He can hear Sam’s screams now, all the time. It is part of his penance for choosing his own freedom over that of another, of deeming his new mission worthy of these sacrifices. He will bear it – forever, if he has to.
And he will make sure that the new Heaven they will create will be worth all the sacrifices made in its name.
6 December 2013