March-Stalkers Mighty: 22/22
Oct. 21st, 2012 07:18 amPedes conjunctim.
“Hey,” Dean said brightly. “So I kind of told everyone.”
“I heard,” Castiel replied, dry as anything. “Would it be inappropriate to kiss you here.”
Dean laughed then, riding high on adrenalin and triumph and adoration, and held out a hand. “It’s bonfire night, Cas. Give it an hour and kissing will look pretty tame.”
March-Stalkers Mighty: Author's notes
Oct. 20th, 2012 09:59 pmAuthor’s notes and readers’ questions.
In which I ramble. There are a few issues here that I felt like addressing, and some links to replies that questions that readers have asked in comments. If you have any questions - about the story, about the verse, about authorial decisions, about what happened off screen - leave a comment to this post and I’ll probably notice! The links to questions asked in comments may take you to LJ, AO3, or DW, as I post on all three.
Notes:
On sexuality.
On monsters and the mediaeval.
On the chapter titling scheme.
On the images.
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: ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
March-Stalkers Mighty: 21/22
Oct. 18th, 2012 09:10 amPassus X: Pes sinister.
“Dean,” he rasped simply; only Dean’s name had never sounded like that before, all that possession and promise and wonder. And what had Dean ever done to deserve that?
( Chapter text )March-Stalkers Mighty: 20/22
Oct. 15th, 2012 10:15 pmPassus X: Pes dexter.
“Lucifer did what he did for power,” Castiel rumbled, deeper than the demon and more visceral, from the heart and not the throat. “I did it because my people were dying.”
“And yet you did it,” the demon who had been Lucifer reminded him kindly. “And you changed. I would have been proud of you, little cousin, if you had been one of mine.”
March-Stalkers Mighty: 19/22
Oct. 13th, 2012 09:37 pmPassus X: Pes dexter.
“Lucifer did what he did for power,” Castiel rumbled, deeper than the demon and more visceral, from the heart and not the throat. “I did it because my people were dying.”
“And yet you did it,” the demon who had been Lucifer reminded him kindly. “And you changed. I would have been proud of you, little cousin, if you had been one of mine.”
March-Stalkers Mighty: 18/22
Oct. 12th, 2012 02:47 pmPassus IX: Pes dexter.
“Choose your words very carefully,” Gabriel advised, sweet as arsenic in the sugar bowl.
( Chapter text )March-Stalkers Mighty: 17/22
Oct. 10th, 2012 10:31 pmPassus VIII: Pes sinister.
Gabriel glanced over his shoulder, and bared his teeth in a wicked white grin. “I’m not good company. Shocked?”
Dean looked at the hard line of his shoulders, and thought of the Trickster’s easy wit and the way his enthusiasm had spread around the table like fire to paper.
“A bit,” he confessed.
March-Stalkers Mighty: 16/22
Oct. 8th, 2012 10:01 am(Requies.)
Okay, so. Cas could make answering “how do you want your eggs” sound like he was the guy in that old song, trying to work out how close to Scylla’s cliff he had sail to avoid toppling ass over ears into Charybdis. Clearly, he needed to laugh more.
( Chapter text )March-Stalkers Mighty: 15/22
Oct. 4th, 2012 05:55 pmPassus VIII: Pes dexter.
“There is... next to no self-preservation in the choices he makes,” Rachel said, and Dean got the impression she was picking her words carefully, almost like a warning. “If he thinks that he can better care for someone by sacrificing himself, he will do it without hesitation.”
( Chapter text )March-Stalkers Mighty: 14/22
Oct. 2nd, 2012 08:40 pmPassus VII: Pes sinister.
“Close your eyes,” Gabriel hissed, like something a hell of a lot farther from civilisation than any sly-mannered demon.
( Chapter text )March-Stalkers Mighty: 13/22
Sep. 30th, 2012 02:29 pmPassus VII: Pes dexter.
“Joanna Beth Harvelle.” Ellen’s voice rang out over the rocks like a richer, deeper echo of her daughter’s, sending a cringe of instinctive guilt twisting down Dean’s spine. “What have you done?”
Chapter warnings: demonic possession (temporary), graphic injury, canon-typical violence.
( Chapter text )March-Stalkers Mighty: 12/22
Sep. 28th, 2012 11:26 amPassus VI: Pes sinister.
Castiel’s fingers curled around Dean’s shoulders, too hard, and his eyes were bright as the water.
“I have never wanted to be greedy before, Dean. So tell me, who is the siren?”
March-Stalkers Mighty: 11/22
Sep. 26th, 2012 04:03 pmPassus VI: Pes dexter.
“We don’t hurt children, Dean,” Ellen said, firm and far too steady, and her eyes flicked down for a moment to that notebook again, with something like regret. “But children grow up.”
( Chapter text )March-Stalkers Mighty: 10/22
Sep. 24th, 2012 08:23 amPassus V: Pes sinister.
Gabriel was spiralling upwards in tight rapid turns, bright as a burning dragonfly, flittering and quivering and gilded in the air against the coarse browns and greys and greens of the giant.
( Chapter text )March-Stalkers Mighty: 9/22
Sep. 22nd, 2012 08:21 amPassus V: Pes dexter.
“I’ll hold them off, Cas,” Dean swore, fierce and low. “I’ll hold them all off.”
( Chapter text )March-Stalkers Mighty: 8/22
Sep. 20th, 2012 04:33 pmPassus IV: Pes sinister.
“I don’t like him,” Dean informed Cas.
“Go stick your head in a pig,” Gabriel returned pleasantly.
“Save it,” Cas growled.
March-Stalkers Mighty: 7/22
Sep. 17th, 2012 10:12 amPassus IV: Pes dexter.
Dean stared at Cas in sad, sad betrayal. “Pretty sure you’re not meant to be playing words that kicked it three hundred years ago, guys.”
Cas’ mouth quirked slyly. “If he can, I can.” Then he carefully played nudiustertian.
March-Stalkers Mighty: 6/22
Sep. 14th, 2012 12:35 pmPassus III: Pes sinister.
“Cas,” he rasped at the moon. “You should be resting.”
“So should you.”
