Fic: Cold Burn 3/6 (Supernatural)

[crime_and_ink]

Title: Cold Burn (3/6)

Rating: NC-17 overall.

Genre: Slash with a case fic.

Characters: Gabriel, Sam, Dean, Castiel, some Bobby. Gabriel’s Jack Russell Terrier makes a few appearances.

Pairings: Sam/Gabriel with Dean/Castiel in the background.

Warnings: Some dub-con.

Summary: When the Winchesters and Castiel turn to Gabriel for help, Sam makes a deal he’s sure he’s going to regret. He and Gabriel both struggle with outcome, and strange disappearances and stranger weather lead them into a hunt for something that’s affecting an entire state as it lures its victims into its clutches.

Notes: This takes place and goes AU after ‘Abandon All Hope.’ There’s the likely bastardization of a myth (I wanted it creepier, so I used artistic license. Lots of it.)

 

A low, buzzing drone cut right through the dream Dean had been having, and right through his skull as well. It felt like someone was trying to saw his head in half while he was awake.

“Dean,” Castiel said, the mattress shifting and creaking quietly when he leaned across the bed. “Your phone has been ringing almost constantly for the last four hours.”

Unwilling to move very far, Dean turned his head until he could just see Cas sitting on the other side of the bed, holding the phone in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. The angel looked almost as pristine as he usually did, but his hair was slightly mussed, marks on his cheeks from the creases in the pillows.

“Who is it?” Dean mumbled. Castiel looked puzzled. “The display. What’s the name? And why don’t you know how to do this?”

“You and Sam are the only ones who call me. There’s no need for me to read the display.”

That was pretty sad, even worse than Cas only having two humans and, now, his dick of a brother for company . He’d have to try and remember if there was anyone else whose number he could program into Cas’ phone. He grabbed the phone and squinted at the display.

Bobby.

Dean flipped it open. “Yeah?”

“Where are you?”

“Hello to you too,” Dean muttered, shielding his face. A few rays of sunlight managed to get in through a gap in the curtains, despite the snow he could see falling, lighting up the room in narrow stripes. Cas’ eyes were lit up as he watched Dean intently. “We’re in Tennessee, not far from Birchwood and a little town that isn’t on any of the maps. I’m not getting a great feeling about this place. Oh, and we found the Trick- Gabriel living here.”

“Well I’ve got some work for you. A kid went missing further north and I need you to look in to anything that only takes children and affects the weather. I’d do it myself, but there’s a group of demons that I’m researching for Rufus.” An uncertain hesitation. “You found the Trickster, or whatever he really is?”

“Right where he said he’d be, but not before I got a gun pointed at my jewels by his friend.” One more reason to hate the place.

“You trust him?”

“I’ve done some stupid things, Bobby, but I’m not that much of an idiot. Of course I don’t trust him.” Sam might, a traitorous voice whispered in the back of Dean’s head. Sam came down here because he thinks that Gabriel’s going to help. He thought Ruby was helping before.

That had been different, though. Ruby was a demon and Sam had been drinking her blood. That had screwed with his judgment: it had to have.

Dean allowed himself to sink back down under the sheets. He didn’t have to trust the people to like beds with clean sheets and soft pillows.

Cas being on the other side doesn’t hurt, he thought as he watched the angel lean back against the pillows.

Later that morning Gabriel found himself busy explaining to Castiel why they’d have to go out and change some of the protection around the houses and fields at a table covered with plates piled high with banana, strawberry and vanilla pancakes. Dean, aside from shooting occasional glares at Gabriel, was eating the pancakes that Sofi had left in the fridge- as tempting as it was to poison Dean, Gabriel wouldn’t wish Amber’s cooking on anyone and had checked the note before putting them on the table. He had no idea what they’d do for breakfast after this, though.

“Tailor-made wards, little brother. Nothing and no one even close to angelic or demonic is going to be doing anything on this land without my say-so. And some blood in the walls.” Gabriel smiled and Sam, who had been eyeing the table of food with some apprehension, took one look at the jam and had second thoughts.

“Much to the surprise of the meteorologists, several inches of snow are expected to fall over–”

“Why is it always blood?” Dean muttered into his pancakes, his mouth full. His complaints drowning out the rest of the weatherman’s predictions.. “Why not a photo or some hair? But, no, it’s always got to be blood.”

“It’s not your blood. Why do you care so much?”

That got him no answers, except a frantic look from Sam. Gabriel rolled his eyes. Well, there was a much easier way to find things out when people weren’t talking.

Sam was almost screaming in his head, effectively masking Dean’s thoughts. Don’t ask about it. Please don’t ask about it. I spend half my time trying to avoid bringing it up in any way. Don’t ask, please don’t ask.

“Don’t worry, I’ll bring him back in one piece. Wouldn’t want to ruin your fun, would I?”

“I’ve got holy oil in my bag and a lighter in my pocket,” Dean warned him, pushing a plate of pancakes across the table to Castiel, who stared at them as if he didn’t know what to do with them. “Try them. They’re good.”

 

“Cas.” Sam caught the angel just outside the back door, in the narrow passage between the house and the garage with a complicated lock and doors heavier than necessary. Dean hadn’t been happy to put the impala there, but they’d reasoned that it was better than leaving it outside when it had started to snow. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Brushing dust from the sleeve of his coat, Cas nodded. “Of course.”

“You- You know about the deal I made with Gabriel, don’t you?”

“I do.”

Nothing. No hint of what he was planning to do with the knowledge, just the rather unforgiving expression that Sam had grown accustomed to since they’d met. The usual hint of emotion that he’d started to develop lately was hidden.

“Are you going to tell Dean?”

“I do not believe that it’s my place. If you wish to reveal the conditions of your deal to your brother, you will do it yourself.”

“Sam,” Castiel started, but hesitated before continuing. “Gabriel may have lied to you and Dean many times, but I do believe that the majority of his intentions are pure.”

Sam repeated, “The majority.” That meant that Gabriel was planning on following through on the deal. Not that he’d really thought that he wouldn’t: if there was one thing that Gabriel had always done, no matter who he’d been at that point, it was follow through on his promises, no matter how terrible they’d been.

“Gabriel is unconventional, in many ways, even by human standards. He is an unobserved phenomenon by angelic standards.”

That wasn’t a surprise. The way the angels worked didn’t look like it left much time for disobeying one order, let alone skipping out on your entire life. “So what is he? An archangel or a trickster?” Sam asked. What is he when it comes down to making a choice? How do we know that he isn’t going to screw us over the second he gets a chance?

Castiel pursed his lips a little as he thought about it. “He is something different. It’s entirely possible that contains only the most useful traits of both angels and tricksters.”

Somehow, Sam doubted that. Even if he only went off what they’d seen rather than heard about, Gabriel already had quite a list of traits that were negative. He was manipulative, careless, took pleasure in the pain of others, judged everyone but himself and didn’t act like any angel that they’d met.

“We are not made to spend long periods of time here. We are not made to take initiative as you would say.” He looked away from a split-second. “We are not made to stay away from our brothers and sisters.”

Isolation, Sam thought with a jolt. Years without any contact with your family, without being able to go home. He’d done it and, as much as he’d loved Stanford, he’d missed Dean. He’d even missed his dad.

He tried to imagine what it would be like to spend as long away from Dean, from Bobby and Cas, as Gabriel had spent away from his family. It made his chest feel hollow and cold, like someone had replaced his lungs with ice.

 

The wards weren’t that difficult, even with the light snowfall beginning to get heavier. There was a wall that went all around the property, including the fields, so the only time they had to repeat it was on the road. In fact, after the first part was done, once he had the blood, Gabriel wouldn’t even need Castiel with him- which was a good thing because he hadn’t stopped watching Gabriel like he was demon since they’d left the house.

It was while carving the final symbol– a modified angel banishing sigil –that Gabriel finally got sick of it. It was one thing to be watched, but another thing entirely to be judged and be able to hear every single thought.

“I didn’t demand anything,” Gabriel snapped, the symbol almost completed. “I offered to make a deal and Sam said yes. I didn’t make him do anything. He can back out anytime.”

Castiel held out his arm, his coat discarded on the wall, the sleeve of his shirt rolled up. “That may be true, but Sam will not ‘back out.’ He blames himself for bringing about the apocalypse and will do everything in his power to make amends, whatever the cost.”

Well it takes one to know one.

“Deano know about your part in it all?” There were three knives in the bag, but one hadn’t been sharpened for some time and another had what looked suspiciously like blood on the blade. There was no point in wasting his time cleaning or sharpening them when there was another.

“It’s not in our nature to make deals,” Castiel continued, ignoring the jab. He’d learned that from Dean, Gabriel was sure. “We are not demons.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t much of a difference between us these days. Would you rather try to keep both Winchesters alive long enough to give them a chance against Lucy? Or do you want to end up with two dead vessels who’ll be brought back when Michael and Lucy decide to have their face-off?”

Castiel said nothing, merely looked at him like he wasn’t angry, just disappointed.

Castiel wasn’t the only one who’d learned from humans: Gabriel ignored him and set about searching for another subject.

He didn’t have to look far for one.

There was something wrong, Gabriel realized as soon as he pushed Castiel’s sleeve further up, exposing a long, jagged cut.

The gash on Castiel’s arm wasn’t fresh, that much Gabriel noticed immediately. The shallow sections at the ends were already healing over and there was a thin scab over the rest.

“How long?” At his brother’s blank look he said, “How long since you stopped healing yourself?”

“It was not my choice.”

Shit. Going native- living alongside humans, eating their food, sleeping with them- was one thing. Stopping healing yourself was stupid, but being unable to heal yourself... That was something else entirely. It took a long time, or a lot of anger, for that ability to fade.

“You must’ve really pissed them off if you’ve lost that much of your grace.”

Something that was almost a smile passed over Castiel’s lips and the emotion Gabriel felt radiating from his brother could have been pride, weak but there. “Yes, I believe I have.”

Gabriel laughed. “We should take bets on how long it’s going to take them to cut me off when they find out what I’ve been doing.”

“Minutes, if not seconds,” Castiel followed smoothly.

“You’ve been spending too much time around the Winchesters. Dean’s rubbing off on you.” It was possible that the flush that spread across Castiel’s cheeks was a trick of the light, but Gabriel shook his head anyway. “Literally and figuratively. I’ll have to give him the Big Brother Talk.” Castiel looked confused. “Tell him to keep his grubby hands off my little brother.”

“Perhaps Dean will deliver the same lecture.”

He only just managed to stop the flinch. “That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t intended to be.”

 

The air changed in a moment and all peace from the area was gone in an instant. Gabriel and Castiel stopped in the middle of the road: Gabriel with his shovel in hand, Castiel wrapping a bandage around his forearm to stem the flow of blood.

“Well that isn’t good,” Gabriel said, watching the air above them ripple, a sure sign of something trying to breach the protective wards.

But what?

It didn’t feel like a demon and, as far as he knew, there hadn’t been anything other than demons in the area since he’d moved into the house. It was likely to be one of their brothers. Damn. He’d been hoping to avoid a confrontation. Drawing his sword from what others would perceive as thin air, he let the shovel drop to the ground, shivering in the frigid air.

“Do me a favor and get out of here before they see you,” he called over his shoulder. “Tell Sam and Dean not to leave the house unless Dad’s banging down the door- actually, no, not even then. He can wait if He decide He wants to talk to us.”

He didn’t have to look to know that Castiel was already gone. He hid the sword beneath his jacket.

 

The angel appeared less than two feet in front of Gabriel, his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. New to a vessel, then. One of the younger ones. Keen to please. Ziza, the name locked in the back of his head where his old life as an archangel had been sealed when he’d left.

“It’s not very nice to enter without knocking.” Beneath the conversational tone, he made sure to insert an underlying threat. Ziza regarded him with varying degrees of boredom, or maybe he just hadn’t figured out how to work his vessel’s face yet. Either way, Gabriel saw nothing positive there. “I’m using protection for a reason.”

“And we have been searching for you for a reason.” Ziza stepped forward and laid a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “We have searched for many years. Our brothers will be pleased when you rejoin us.”

Do you really think I’m that stupid?

Gabriel shrugged him off. He pursed his lips and folded his arms, tucking his hands down until he felt his right hand touch the sword. “Yeah. About that. Have you thought that the Winchesters and Castiel have the right idea? It doesn’t have to be like this.”

“I am simply following orders.”

“We’re supposed to follow His orders, and the last time I checked, He wasn’t up there to hand out any new ones. His original orders still stand. This planet, these humans, they aren’t ours to destroy, despite what Lucifer and Michael think. We don’t have to listen to them. You don’t have to listen to them.”

Pursing his lips, Ziza looked towards the sky. “We have our orders. They may not be His, but we must follow them. We have no choice.”

“Not when He’s gone. There’s a choice now: He’s not giving us orders. Have you ever wondered why? Maybe he wants us to think for ourselves. It doesn’t have to end up like this. No one’s making us do anything. This is not what He planned. Ask yourself why He would want humans destroyed?”

Ziza kept looking up at the sky with a blank but oddly earnest expression that he’d seen on many of the less experienced angels. So eager to take part in battle, too inexperienced to know what it really meant. Children, really. Soldiers in a war that they were being manipulated into fighting. Gabriel sighed: there wasn’t another option. There wasn’t another option. His hand closed around the hilt of the sword; the sword heating in response to his touch. Ziza didn’t react.

“Come back with me, brother,” he said, lowering his gaze to meet Gabriel’s, serene but emptier than that of a corpse. The faint flicker of grace was not enough to overpower mindless loyalty.

“I’m sorry.” You have no idea how sorry I am. The sword began to burn and Gabriel pulled it from his coat, sliding the blade between Ziza’s vessel’s ribs with ease. The other angel’s expression changed from serene, to shocked, to agonized as blood ran down the blade, down Gabriel’s hand, a trickle that was hot with inhuman energy. “I really am, but there’s no going back.”

The blinding light of his brother’s dying grace lasted for seconds, a testament to his relatively short life. Gabriel let the empty vessel fall to the ground, the host’s soul burned out by the angel’s death. Nothing more than a corpse, now, like Ziza was no more than atoms scattered across the galaxy and only an archangel or their Father could put him together.

Breathing hard, his breath fogging in the cold air, his vision blurred now, Gabriel wiped moisture that was not tears from his eyes and began to search for the shovel he could have sworn he’d left feet away. He had a body to burn.

He left the sword on the road, speared into the dirt while he dug a ditch by the side of the road. It would make it easier to hide the body while it burned without having to try to move the remains afterwards.

 

It was growing dark when Gabriel eventually walked through the doorway and Cas tensed up as soon as he entered, watching the archangel’s movements with concern. The smell of burning flesh followed him in the door, directly at odds with the bloody sword he held in one hand and there was a smudge of ash under his right eye. He dropped an open box of matches on the coffee table, watching them scatter with a blank expression that would have looked more at home on Castiel’s face than Gabriel’s.

Dean was the first to speak, despite Castiel’s slow shake of his head.

“What happened?”

“What happened,” Gabriel echoed flatly, “is that I just saved your lives. Ziza was trying to bring our brothers here so that they could torture you and cut you into little pieces until you said both ‘yes’.”

With the words still hanging in the air like overripe fruit, just waiting to drop and split open, Gabriel turned away from them. When Castiel took a step forwards, Gabriel’s head snapped up, stopping him in his tracks. From his position and angle, Sam had no idea what Castiel saw, but it was enough to make the angel stop but not retreat. The two stared at each other until Dean made a nervous little movement a few feet behind Castiel. As if he’d been reminded that Sam and Dean were still in the room, he started and left the room, his movements precise and nothing like the relaxed, almost lazy, manner that Sam was used to.

Gabriel caught Sam’s eye on the way up the stairs, his meaning clear: It’s time to make a payment.

 

The bedroom wasn’t what Sam had expected, although Sam had no idea what he had been expecting. Probably something like the rest of the house: a room filled with photographs and paintings by someone else’s family and friends; framed sketches covered in childlike scrawls and little notes that meant nothing to him because he wasn’t a part of their life or world.

Instead he found a room with what looked suspiciously like a real Fabergé egg on the dresser and a painting that looked like an original da Vinci, or at least very close to the style Sam remembered from a few art classes he’d taken. There were no photos on the walls, or notes stuck anywhere. Despite the egg, painting and piles of candy that covered most surfaces, it was surprisingly impersonal, like so many of the motel rooms Sam had grown up in. A temporary base rather than somewhere someone really lived.

Gabriel wasn’t in the room, but Sam could hear the shower running in what he assumed was the en-suite bathroom. He slowly undressed, folding his clothes and leaving them on the chair beside the dresser, touching the Fabergé egg with his fingertips before he walked over to the bed.

I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing here. If he backed out, he had no idea what would happen, but knowing Gabriel, it wouldn’t be pleasant. He really didn’t want to have to live through his brother dying repeatedly again. Sam lay down on the bed, resisting the urge to pull the sheets and thick blankets over his body, and waited, aware that the water had stopped running a few minutes ago.

Gabriel’s footsteps were light on the carpet and Sam didn’t know how close he was until he felt his fingers brush against his back. Sam jumped, startled by both the expected warmth of his skin, despite the room being cool, and the softness of the touch.

“You’re tense,” Gabriel admonished, and pressed his fingers into his back. Sam’s muscles twitched but stayed tense. “Relax.”

“This is part of a deal. I don’t have to relax,” Sam said, keeping his face pressed against the pillow.

“You don’t have to, but it would be better for both of us if you did.”

“Tho-those dreams I had,” Sam gasped when Gabriel crawled up the bed until he was straddling Sam’s back, leaned over until he was resting his forehead against Sam’s shoulder, breath warm against his skin. That was weird. He’d expected it to be rougher, handsy and more like a bad one night stand than... whatever the hell Gabriel was doing. “The ones–”

“–with the shadows and the light and the deal you didn’t want to make at the time.”

He wasn’t even naked, which was even weirder: Sam could feel the cool slide of the silk boxers against his skin every time Gabriel moved, heard the thin material brushing across the cotton sheets.

“Yeah, those ones.”

Gabriel laughed quietly. “There wasn’t enough demon blood in your body for you to tap into what I really was, but there was enough for your subconscious to realize that something was wrong. Get up.”

Still on the dreams, Sam just had time to say, “What?” before Gabriel slid down until he could grab Sam’s hips and pull him into an awkward, half-kneeling position, and shove two of the pillows under his hips. “Oh.”

“Not oh.” A quick kiss where the old scar was from Jake stabbing him before Gabriel was straddling him again.

Hands warmer than any human’s had the right to be– not human, Sam’s brain helpfully supplied –slid under the waistband of his boxers, tugging them down.

Hot breath against his skin as Gabriel leaned forward to press his lips to the back of Sam’s neck, teeth grazing the skin there- not a kiss because it didn’t feel like one, but something more than a simple touch, more than the first one had been, he was sure. Fingers skirting down and across like he was trying to map every piece of Sam’s body, and for the first time since they’d met, for the first time since he’d found out what Gabriel was, Sam thought angel and really believed it.

“Stop thinking,” Gabriel said, curling his fingers around Sam’s cock, shifting just enough that Sam felt his skin pressing against his back, hot and hard even through the boxers.

Sam whined and tried to thrust into his grip, searching for more friction, or maybe just something faster and harder because Gabriel’s slow strokes were too slow. Not enough to make him come, but enough to push him close to the edge.

The slight dig of teeth into his skin, Gabriel groaning quietly was enough to push him right over, coming harder, thrusting into Gabriel’s fist while Gabriel said something that could have been a curse or a prayer.

 

The kiss was supposed to be rough; a claim of sorts, but Sam caught Gabriel’s lips and changed it into something gentle, almost chaste, pulling him down with one hand splayed across the back of his neck.

Gabriel pulled away, staring down at Sam, who just blinked up at him, expression vaguely blissful. His head was tilted back, a small smile curving his lips, gaze muzzy.

Oh, yeah, he thought. This is going to get out of hand.

 

“Counting on your guilty conscience to save you?” Amber asked when Gabriel picked up the phone. The line crackled loudly, probably because of a loose connection somewhere. He clicked it on to speakerphone and went back to trying to stop the pancakes from burning. Cooking, as he’d found out recently, was a lot harder when you had to do more than snap your fingers. Messier, too.

“I don’t have a conscience.”

“I know. That’s why I like you. There’s nothing worse than the ones who think that feeling bad about something’ll stop them from- Sofi, put that down before you cut your bloody fingers off.” There was a scuffle on the other of the line before Gabriel heard Sofi scream something and Amber tell her that if she didn’t shut up, she was being sent to stay with one of their brothers. Breathless, Amber continued. “Sorry about that. She’s been a little bitch since we left. How’re your friends?”

Gabriel pushed the empty beer cans into the bin, nudging a stray gun aside to put a plate down. There was a small puddle of gun oil on the table. “They’re not my friends.”

“Oh, of course, they’re your ‘casual acquaintances’ or some shit like that. Come on. Spill your guts or I’ll cut you open when I get back and make you do it for real.”

“I helped them before.” It wasn’t really a lie, strictly speaking. He had been trying to help them, in a way. He just hadn’t told them. Or done it in a very nice way. Twice. From opposing positions.

They probably had a reason to distrust him, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and they were definitely on their knees now.

Sam on his knees. Now that was an interesting thought...

“You still there?”

Castiel was his brother and, while they’d worked together many times, they’d never been as close as he had been with Michael and Lucifer; Gabriel was sure that Castiel still resented him for leaving. If he hadn’t before, he definitely did now.

“They didn’t take it very well,” Gabriel, considering that being staked and trapped in a ring of burning holy oil wouldn’t translate for someone who wasn’t a hunter or an angel. Probably something along the lines of being doused in petrol while someone held a match and told you to run if you were invincible.

“That’s boring. I thought they were enemies turned friends or something. Anything interesting happen? Any idiots dumb enough to trespass?”

“Nope,” he lied. The sword had been stowed in the bottom of the closet in his bedroom and he hadn’t glanced at it since he’d left it there. It wasn’t like he needed to go into the closet for anything, after all. “The most exciting thing is the snow.”

“I think I heard about that. Well, do me a favor and call me if anything happens, or if anyone turns up. Feel free to shoot them if they’re not on the list.” Sofi shouted in the background and Amber groaned. “Hopefully before I’ve been involved in a murder/suicide-by-cop. I’ll call you when she stops acting like a bitch. Or after I kill her.”

“I am not acting like a bitch!”

“I’ve got to go and rob some nice people now. I’ll see you later.”

The click of the disconnection was followed by a shrill beep.

“She sounds nice,” Sam offered from the doorway. Thankfully, he was fully dressed and the post-orgasmic haze was gone from his eyes. He was also avoiding Gabriel’s eyes, and Gabriel kicked himself for finding that anything close to endearing- then wondered how much of the conversation he’d heard. “I mean, compared to when we met her. The lack of a gun helps. How did you find her, anyway? Why are you even here?”

Gabriel offered Sam one of the half-full bags of chips. “I saved her life. She’s human, doesn’t believe in demons, has loose morals and doesn’t care who she cons when they have money: I like her. Dean and Castiel still upstairs?”

Shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, Sam glanced towards the stairs. “Sharing a room. Could they have heard us... last night?”

“Not a chance. They’d only hear us if I wanted them to, and I don’t. Works the same the other way. I don’t want to know what our brothers sound like when they come.”

Sam screwed up his face but was quickly distracted by the food.

“Are you making breakfast?” He eyed the pancakes hesitantly, as if he expected them to turn into chainsaw-wielding maniacs in front of him. Gabriel wasn’t very surprised: not that long ago, he would have done it.

Flipping one pancake out of the pan and on to the closest plate, Gabriel offered it to him. “I’m not a great cook, but it’s these or something from the cupboards, and the last time I ate the cereal here, I almost choked on a USB stick.”

“Why don’t you just...” Sam snapped the fingers of his free hand, using his fork to cut a piece off the edge of the pancake.

“It’s too obvious. I’ve got to stay under the radar. They’ll even be looking for the little things now after last night. Nowhere left for me to hide since Lucy got out. I thought you’d appreciate that.” Sam looked away. You didn’t need to be an angel to feel the guilt radiating off him in waves.

 

“Have you noticed anything strange since you met him?” Sam asked. Gabriel stopped just before he reached the room. If Sam was going to go searching through things that were none of his business, there was nothing stopping Gabriel himself from doing the same.

Amber’s voice came through clearer than it would have on the phone. “Weird’s my life. I’ll need a bit more to work with.”

Why was she calling?

Hesitating, Sam looked at the trailing telephone cord, tangling it around his fingers. “People appearing or disappearing...” Zombies? Alien abductions? People spontaneously bursting into a rendition of Queen’s greatest hits?

Gabriel muffled a snort with his hand. That was another one he’d have to remember. In another life, Sam Winchester would have made a great trickster. Or maybe in this life, if they got out of this mess alive.

“He saved my life when we met. Pretty sure he appeared out of nowhere.”

Sam’s expression grew bright with tentative hope. “Okay, that’s great. Thanks for your help.”

“Any time. Do me a favor, though, and remember to tell Gabriel to stay away from the garage if the system packs in: it’s a bastard in this weather. The doors don’t catch right without the mechanisms working- I don’t know how to fix it, so just tell him to leave it alone- and the doors are heavy. They can crush bones if you get caught between them, as one of my brothers would testify to. Years of physiotherapy and he still can’t snap his fingers- wait, there was one thing.”

Sam’s face fell. “What?”

“I had a weird dream not long after we met. Have you ever seen Groundhog Day?”

“Yeah.”

“It was like that. It was about the... job... I was to do the day after. I’d been going to go in without a plan and until I made a plan in the dream, people kept getting killed.” Amber paused. “More like a nightmare. I went in with a plan on the day.”

“Thanks.” After saying goodbye and assuring her that they’d stay away from the garage, Sam set the phone back in its cradle, leaning on the table for a moment before turned around just as Gabriel walked in. “You put her in a time loop, didn’t you? I thought she was your friend.”

He kept his chin up, almost smiling. “She needed to learn a lesson. I made sure that she did. Amber’s lucky that I let her think it was a dream. She got twelve people killed dozens of times before the message got through.”

Sam shook his head. “You’re supposed to be an angel-”

“In case you haven’t noticed, bucko, I am an angel. It’s where I got the brains, wings and big shiny sword from.”

“You’re supposed to do the right thing, not screw with people because you think they need to learn a lesson. Cas, he’s helped us, and he’s going to fall because he’s doing the right thing. You- you spend your time trapping people in time loops and having them probed by aliens because you think that they deserve it.”

He snapped, “The last time I did the right thing, I got staked. Several times! It can’t kill me, but I’m enough of a trickster that it hurts like hell! Those projections have a nasty habit of throwing sensations back at me.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked, moving closer.

“I tried to help you and you put a stake through my chest! What part of that don’t you understand?”

“Help us? You call torturing me for months ‘help’? I’m beginning to think that Dean’s right: you are a coward. If your idea of help is putting someone through emotional hell rather than come out and get involved in the fight that was yours to begin with, then you’re not much of angel, or at least not the one everybody reads about. At least not anymore. What happened to you?”

Castiel chose that moment to appear less than a foot away, holding a stack of books. Sam relaxed, reaching out to take the books.

“What are these?”

“Bobby requested that I bring these back. He believes that the creature behind the abductions in New York is listed within. He included a detailed description of the injuries its victims sustained as well as photographs.” The list was written over three sides of paper. “Am I interrupting something?”

“The usual,” Gabriel said before Sam could open his mouth. “I want Sam to say yes; he’d rather be set on fire. Which I can always arrange if he really wants to go through with it.”

On anyone else, the slight twitch would have been a look of utter disgust. At least it meant that Castiel would stay out of it.

Beginning to discuss the creature- already vetoing vampires and werewolves before he looked at the list- Sam left with Castiel without looking back. Gabriel was left alone in the room, adrenalin still thrumming through his body, but mixed with something else, hotter and sharper. Coyote whined, pushing against his leg.

“Don’t you start,” he warned distractedly.

He couldn’t say that he hadn’t expecting it, but, still, it had hurt more than Gabriel had thought it would.




(4/6)