Pelion, with all its woods (A March-Stalkers Mighty extra)

Pelion, with all its woods.

a March-Stalkers Mighty extra

Proud of their strength, and more than mortal size
The gods they challenge, and affect the skies:
Heaved on Olympus tottering Ossa stood;
On Ossa, Pelion nods with all his wood.
Homer’s Odyssey, trans. Alexander Pope. (Book IX.)

Written for the Sabriel mini-bang, 2012. Artwork by machidieles.

Word Count: 10800.

Pairings: Gabriel/Sam, background Dean/Castiel.

Genre: Slashy pre-slash.

Rating: Mature.

Beta: kototyph

Warnings: Slight elements of PTSD. Hints (without details) at intersexual characteristics.

Spoilers: None (AU).

Summary: If you haven’t read the main story:
The Winchesters live in a small, very isolated town in the middle of the barren monster-ridden marches, which has very little contact with the outside world. The second-worst of the monsters that inhabit their lands are the demons. The very worst are also the most newly arrived, and they are the angels. Dean and Sam have both buried the memories of the silent boy with black wings whom Dean had used to play with as a child, years before any other human every saw an angel. But when Castiel returns to bring an end to the war, and the familiar pedlar Gabriel turns out to have been an angel all along, things get messy - and not only for them.
The hunters, including Sam and Dean, turn on Gabriel and lock him up in the barn; Castiel is shot out of the sky and almost dies before Dean and Sam find him; and finally, Dean has to help the archangel escape and make a wary ally of him, to save Castiel’s life.
Sam has, in the course of the main story, been turned into a dog by tripping an old curse, and has fled the land with Gabriel and Castiel to avoid a kill-or-be-killed situation with the other hunters. Together they’ve just come up with a solution: the curse can’t be lifted, but it can be transmuted, so that Sam is now a skinwalker.
And now that you’ve read the main story, or the summary:
This story is told from Sam’s perspective, while he is out in the wide world with Gabriel, Castiel, Gwen, Rachel, and the other angels. Sam returns to consciousness, human-shaped again after a month on four feet, with Gabriel at his bedside. Gabriel’s fumbling attempts to soothe the pain of transformation tumble them hard and fast towards emotions and vulnerabilities that neither is ready to deal with.

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