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The Road So Far (This Time Around)
Season 2: Chapter 90
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“So then there’s this angel, named Aziraphale- yes, yes, I know that’s not a real angel,” Gabe flapped his hand up and down as his sister’s eyes once again interrupted him mid-story. “You’ve seriously got to get this whole pop-culture thing down. Nobody cares about real things anymore, Cassie. It’s all characters, books, and shows. Take Doctor Who for example-”
Before Gabriel could launch into his next educational breakdown of essential information his sister somehow did not possess – the sixth or seventh in a row with no discernable transition point that he could tell was both confusing and irritating to the smaller angel, which only made him plan for more topics to jump to – he drew up short as Angel Radio hummed to life inside his noggin’. It was a private prayer.
Castiel, who had been working very hard to tune her baffling brother out (with varying degrees of success), noticed the abrupt silence far quicker than she would have any specific word. Her head snapped to the side. Gabriel was staring into the distance, head tilted ever so slightly up and to the side, expression serious, and Castiel knew he was listening to a human prayer. Her vessel tensed, stomach clenching in a way that could only be described as tying itself into knots.
Guess that was one less human expression that needed deciphering.
Gabriel tuned back into his surroundings, glancing at his sister offhandedly. The archangel held back a burst of laughter the second he noticed Castiel’s rigid posture and guarded eyes. Despite the unblinking stare locked on him, she couldn’t hide the concern that flickered through her grace in ochre rivulets. Each vein bled green dread along the edges, mixing together to form eddies of tarnished bronze.
She already knew the Winchesters had given up. The little angel that could was finally seeing how weak human resolve was. Good. If she learned that lesson now, she wouldn’t end up on the wrong side of everything when the world tore itself in two.
He held up a finger and offered her a wink. “Hold that thought, Cassie. I’ve got to see a man about an Apocalypse.”
Gabriel left behind the muffled rage of his sister. Alone in the Ether for the first time since kidnapping his sibling, the archangel allowed his smile to drop. He headed for the Winchesters and, finally, the beginning of the end.
-o-o-o-
“Uncle!”
Dean let the words echo along the tall walls and long hallway. When no snarky comeback came, Dean dropped his arms.
With an annoyed roll of his eyes, the time-traveler added, “We’ll do it!”
Still nothing.
Dean had just turned to give Sammy a, ‘What now?’ look – they definitely hadn’t come up with a Plan C – when there was a slow clap from behind them. Both Winchesters spun around, surprised to find the short, familiar vessel of the Trickster standing five feet away from them. And at least fifteen feet away from the circle of oil he was supposed to appear inside.
‘Son of a bitch!’ was the look Dean now wanted to send his brother, but tapped down on it hard as both Winchesters squared up to the archangel.
“I’m surprised this is the game that broke you.” Gabe raised a sardonic eyebrow at the hunter in the racing suit. “Let me guess; nobody puts Baby on the racetrack?”
“You shut your piehole,” Dean growled. “You don’t get to say her name.”
The Trickster snorted, shaking his head with an eye roll that threatened to tear orbital muscles. When they managed to roll back into his skull, he raised his hands up, fingers curling into air quotes. “So. ‘You’ll do it. ’ Do what, exactly?”
The boys exchanged looks. How were they going to talk the archangel in a literal circle around them. Dean cleared his throat and decided, well, here goes.
“Follow the rules.”
“Which rules?”
The Righteous Man rolled his eyes. “The rules of the game .”
Gabe grinned. “Which game?”
“You know which one,” Dean growled, already getting worked up. Sam put a hand on his shoulder.
“The biblical one,” Sam spoke up, glaring at the archangel but trying to remain a calmer, more neutral party. Or, at least a less aggressive one. “You want Dean to sell his soul. For me.”
“Well….” the Trickster shrugged haplessly. Sam’s jaw clenched. “Doesn’t have to be for you, but… pretty sure that’s the only way it can go down.”
“You don’t know that.” Dean took a step forward, and Sam clamped his hand down harder. They didn’t need to back the archangel even further from the circle they needed him to be in. “You don’t.”
Gabe had the gall to look regretful. “I’m sorry, guys. I really am. But I do.”
The silence stretched between the three, with the two hunters torn between what the archangel was saying and what they needed to do to escape.
“So. Ready to go quietly?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dean found himself saying without thinking. They needed to stall, they needed to get Gabe on the other side of the hall behind them, and he didn’t have much going as far as a plan. “Not so fast.”
Gabriel raised his arms in an annoyed gesture and an impatient look that said, ‘What is it now?’
Dean exchanged a glance with Sam, whose eyes were a touch too wide. The older Winchester bit back a groan, realizing his brother didn’t have a better plan than his not-a-plan-so-much-as-a-half-formed-thought he was working on.
Damn.
“Well, back to Plan B.”
The hunter charged the Trickster with no warning, tackling him to the ground.
“Dean!”
The cuffs were out of his racing jacket by the time they hit the hard floor in a mad scramble to get both of them on the archangel before Gabriel could react. Dean managed to get one snapped tight around the man’s wrist with a resounding click. He had a firm grip on the other arm, but no real way to get the metal wrapped around it. There was a scramble as Gabriel realized what Dean was trying to do, and the two rolled and fought for control over the remaining cuff.
There was a click-click-click and the tightening of metal around skin. Everyone froze. Dean pulled back, taking Gabe with him as the chain between the two cuffs pulled tight. One bracelet was closed around Gabriel’s wrist, the other, Dean’s.
“Ha!” Gabe yelled triumphantly and raised his one free hand, fingers preparing to snap.
A leather band closed around the archangel’s raised wrist, locking shut with the snap of a buckle. A second followed, closing around the other wrist, just below the first, metal handcuff. Sam, standing just behind Dean and leaning over him to get into the tussle, released the sigil-covered leather cuffs and pulled back, having successfully bound the archangel.
The world around them blinked out of existence, causing both Winchesters to snap their heads around at the abrupt change of scenery. The stadium hallway was replaced with a large, empty warehouse. There were oil stains on the ground, empty shelves randomly left about, and broken windows high up on tall walls. The distant sound of roaring crowds and racing engines was gone and, in its place, the echoing silence of a large, open space.
Gabriel, meanwhile, unsurprised as he might be by the environment, was surprised by his newly imprisoned wrists. He stared at them in something akin to disbelief.
“The rhinestones are a nice touch,” he commented casually, raising an eyebrow at what was very, very clearly bondage cuffs attached to his wrists. Rhinestone-studded, chain-linked, black leather bondage cuffs engraved with binding sigils.
Not really his kink. Particular the whole sigil-binding, bit.
Above him, still straddling him, Dean snorted. There was a downright mischievous grin stretching across his lips. “You should have seen what Sammy here had to do to get those.”
The glare the younger Winchester pinned his brother with was impressively cowing, though somewhat undercut by the way his entire face turned tomato red.
“I’m starting to see where I went wrong,” Gabriel kept his bound arms raised, this time spreading his hands out in apology. He’d never been particularly good at those. However, considering the sigils were in Enochian , he was pretty sure the game (or games , ha! Get it?) was up. Time for damage control. “The erotica game crossed a line. I get that now. But we can talk this over, right guys?”
“Oh, sure. We’ll talk.” Dean leaned back on his calves, heaving out a triumphant, but rough breath from the struggle. He dug the handcuff key out of his jeans pocket, the racing suit replaced by his familiar, comfortable clothes. He stabbed the thing into the cuff on his hand, twisting until he was able to release himself with a single click and the slide of metal. “We’ll talk once you-”
The minute the cuff fell from Dean’s wrist, Gabe punched him in the face with both fists. Dean fell back on his ass and off of the archangel with a flail of surprise and a burst of blood from his nose.
“Dean!”
Sam didn’t have time to reach his brother or get the archangel back under control. An obnoxious shout of ‘Nutcracker!’ and a well aim kicked had him doubling over, re-learning how to breathe through the lightning storm of pain between his legs.
Gabriel scrambled to his knees, then his feet, and took off running. Fortunately for the hunters, he headed right for the circle and Dean knew they still had a slim chance. Hand clamped over his bleeding nose, the older Winchester launched himself to his feet and gave chase. He didn’t make it far before pain flared in his chest, like an anchor had been left behind buried in the floor of the warehouse, and its chain, attached right to his heart, pulled tight. Dean hit the floor for a second time, this time on his hands and knees, clutching at his chest as it tried real damn hard to stay right there, regardless of where the rest of him was headed.
“S-Sam!”
Still hurting, the younger Winchester managed to turn and stagger after the archangel. His much longer legs and sheer determination saw him close the gap between them. As Gabriel crossed the line of holy oil, running for his life, Sam leapt forward, tackling the angel around the waist. They both went down hard.
“Dean!”
Dean lifted his head, teeth gritted against the pain in his chest. It was forceful and demanding, nothing like Chest Cas’s usual warnings. If he didn’t have an angel taking up residence in his chest, he would assume he was having a heart attack. Only he’d had one of those, after losing fifty years to a poker-playing witch. He knew what a heart attack felt like, and this was worse .
“Light it!”
A zippo clattered across the floor towards him, tossed by his brother. Jaw clenched, bearing through the pain as it finally started to fade, Dean stumbled to his feet and scooped up the lighter. He made it to the circle, his brother and the archangel struggling within it. Gabriel might not have access to his powers, rendering him basically human, but he was a scrappy little fucker. Sam had his hands full, even with the foot and a half he had on the archangel.
“Dean, light the circle!”
Trusting his brother had an out, Dean did as Sam demanded. He flicked the lighter to life, flame dancing in the air, and dropped it atop the oil. It took immediately, igniting a ring of fire that quickly grew in height. With a well-timed kick, Sam managed to roll away from the archangel, and continued rolling straight through the flames.
Dean stumbled away from the fire as it roared upwards in sync with a flare of pain in chest. Chest Cas really, really didn’t like being near those flames. So Dean kept a wide berth as he hurried around the circle to his brother, who was smoldering. He patted out the flames and embers on the back of Sam’s flannel as the younger man scrambled to his feet, trying to extinguish the flames on his arm, which thankfully went out pretty easily. Despite being a bit scorched in the clothing department, the kid seemed okay. Other than a hell of a shiner on his right eye, courtesy of their new captive.
“You okay?” were the first words out of Sam’s mouth, despite the fact he was still smoking slightly. Those worried, hazel eyes dropped to his brother’s chest.
Dean rubbed at his recovering sternum, but nodded. In a low voice, ignoring their imprisoned archangel for the time being, he leaned towards his brother and mumbled, “Don’t think Chest Cas liked the idea of ending up in a ring of holy fire.”
Sam’s eyes widened, cheeks losing some of that red color from the struggle, and he dropped his gaze down to Dean’s chest again. It had been a while since he’d thought of that sliver of grace in his brother’s chest as having consequences. But it made sense, he supposed. Their Castiel had been warning them for some time now that Dean’s soul and the sliver of grace were merging dangerously fast. Cas’s grace must have been trying to warn him not to get caught in the circle, because he wouldn’t be able to get out as Sam had.
It was… a little disturbing to think his brother – his human brother – might not be able to escape a trap intended for an angel. A problem for another time, Sam decided. He nodded at his brother, who seemed okay for the time being, and turned his attention to their prisoner, instead.
Gabriel had climbed to his feet amid the flames, cuffed hands held in front of him, one bracelet dangling free, patches of pink fur still stuck to that metal. He grimaced, the expression something of a grin but falling shy, as he lifted his bound wrists. The metal handcuff wrapped around his wrist was in worse condition than its twin, covered with even more splotches of fuzz. The Winchesters had obviously tried to clear the metal to the best of their ability.
Best being a relative (and weak) term, here.
“Don’t you just hate it when your girl can’t do a Brazilian to save her life?” Gabe waggled his eyebrows, jiggling the dangling cuff. It swung back and forth like a patchy, pink pendulum of kink. “I’ve got a fella, let me get him your number. One rip and wowza! Bald as the day you were born, let me tell you.”
“Please don’t,” Sam immediately responded, forehead smoothed out and glare firmly in place. At the same time, Dean’s voice came from beside him, “Could he do Sam’s hair?”
The glare turned on the older Winchester was beyond Ultimate . It was in a bitchface class of its own. Especially with that growing shiner.
“What? He offered!” Dean gestured to the bound archangel, green eyes trailing up to Sam’s luscious locks. “And you could use it.”
“ Dean .”
“Where’d you get the holy oil?” And wasn’t that just a pleasant little cherry on top of his dangerous friggin’ Sunday.
The older of the two brothers grinned at him in a way that made Gabriel want to slap the expression right off the human’s face. “Shouldn’t have given me a game with my Baby.”
Right. Gabriel sighed. That was a predictably dull answer. It wasn’t even creative! Gabe had literally handed the two hunters the weapon they needed to escape. Twice, apparently, he thought as he spared a glare for the dual handcuffs wrapped around his wrists. Unnecessary now, given the holy fire, but no less annoying.
“So how did little Cassie do it, hmm?” The question, asked so nonchalantly, drew both hunters’ frowns. Dean growled, taking a step forward at the overly casual mention of his captured and missing angel, only to be halted by a hand from his brother. Gabe shrugged, unintimidated by the display. “Gotta imagine she figured a way to tell you who I was.”
“She didn’t have to,” Sam answered honestly, but without giving any information away.
When Gabe raised a genuinely surprised eyebrow, Dean snarled. “We’re not playing the same game as you, asshole.”
The archangel’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”
“We make our own rules,” Dean growled out. Beside him, Sam glanced his way, hand still on his shoulder to hold him back.
“Well, that’s just cheating.” The archangel’s lips formed a perfect little pursed pout. He raised his wrists again, jingling the chain between the leather bindings. “Not to mention, puts me at a biiiit of a disadvantage here.”
“Cry me a river,” Dean snapped.
“How does an archangel end up as a Trickster anyway?” Sam asked, confusion and hurt-fueled curiosity filtering across his face. Dean had been pretty sparse on the details; they’d had more pressing matters than a backstory at the time.
Gabriel offered a tight, unamused smile. “My own private witness protection. I skipped out of heaven, had a face transplant, carved out my own little corner of the world.”
“Why?” The younger hunter shook his head. “Why would you leave your home? Your family?”
His genuine turmoil was painful for the brother beside him to hear. That was Sam, Dean thought. Always wanting to see the best in people, believe in the best. That maybe this archangel had his reasons. Like it would make what he’d done to them somehow understandable. Forgivable. That was Sam, always willing to forgive. It wasn’t something Dean had ever been able to understand. Not really.
“Oh, you do not know my family,” Gabe laughed out, tilting his head back. When he finally lowered it, he did so with a sigh, face solemn and perhaps even sad. “I love my brothers. Love them. Dad too. But watching them all turn on each other? Tear at each other’s throats? I couldn’t bear it, okay? So I left. And I was happy. Until you two came along.”
Sam’s confusion turned into a sharp frown. “Us?”
Gabriel glanced between the two brothers, confusion and caution flickering across his face. “You don’t know?”
The younger Winchester glanced at his brother, but Dean wasn’t entirely sure what the archangel was referring to. He tried to convey that with his gaze, lest Sam think he was hiding things again. To Gabe, he hedged, “We know you want us to start the end of the world.”
The archangel barked out a laugh that had no mirth. “Oh, want has nothing to do with it, boys. You’re destined to end the world. From the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always.”
The silence was thick in the warehouse. Sam didn’t dare look at his brother. Dean had always said it was some bullshit ‘destiny’ of theirs to end the world but hearing it from an Archangel…. The weight of that firm belief – a biblical belief coming from damn near the horse’s mouth – was pressing down on the confidence Dean had instilled in his younger brother that they could change it. That they had changed it. Sam could feel the doubt starting to worm its way through his mind. He did his best to bury it.
“Guys… I wish this was a video game,” Gabe confessed, expression genuinely sorry for their fate. For all of their fates. “Easy steps to follow, try as many times as you want to get it right, satisfying ending after so much work getting there. But this is real, and it’s gonna end bloody for us all.”
“But it doesn’t have to,” Dean snapped. “If you would just friggin’ man up and face your family-”
You don’t know anything about my family!” Gabriel yelled, hands fisted in their cuffs. “You think Armageddon is a big deal? That was Sunday dinner for me. There is no facing my family!”
“Then help us stop it,” Sam insisted, desperately throwing an arm out as he tried to get through to the angel without telling him they’d done it once before. They could do it again. “We can stop it.”
“You two-! Like talking to a brick wall!” Gabriel raised his arms, fingers curling towards each other in frustration. He spun away, letting out an irritated growl, struggling to keep his emotions from bursting out without his permission.
After a stretched moment, the archangel deflated, shoulders dropping. When he turned around, his eyes were watery but hard. “It can’t be stopped, Sam. This isn’t about a war…. This is about two brothers who loved each other, and betrayed each other. Unresolved anger like you can’t even imagine. And it’s about to be unleashed. You can’t stop that.
“As it is in Heaven.” The angel raised his hands above his head, fingers reaching towards the heavens. When he lowered them, each palm faced a different brother. “So it must be on Earth. As it is written.”
Dean stared at the archangel. Little brother to Michael. To Lucifer. Little brother to a shitty family handed a shittier deal. He turned to his own little brother. A man that had found out Dean traveled back in time ten years to stop an Apocalypse, and asked how he could help. Didn’t run away from the shit hand God dealt him. A God he still believed in, even after learning what had been ‘written’ for him by that god.
He could have run away. He could have stayed at Stanford, refused to believe Dean. Or he could have crumbled. Given in to Azazel and taken the blood, any number of times it was presented to him. Gotten it over with. Any of them could have. Andy could have found his little corner of the world and smoked himself to an oblivion, still able to talk. Or went his brother’s route and leaned into the plans of the Yellow Eyed Man. Bobby could have told Dean to fuck off after he invited a demon into his house, or brought an angel into the fold like he was family. The old hunter could have told Andy to make his own way or the boys to take a hike. Could have said no, to any one of the too-many favors Dean and Sam demanded of him far too often.
But they didn’t. They’d all faced the impossible and decided screw it. Might as well try.
You’d think if a human could do it, an archangel could at least consider it.
“You’re such a coward,” Dean spoke firmly, repeating his brother’s shocked and disappointed words from the diner, after finding out a Trickster had been messing with their lives so he could get the end of the world started that much sooner. His own words, from a decade past, came readily. “This isn't about some prize fight or some destiny that can't be stopped. This is about you being too afraid to stand up to your family!”
“Get this through your thick skull, you arrogant dick.” The archangel’s eyes were dark. Deadly. Gabriel clenched his teeth, hands curling into fists again, this time in anger. “I am going to have to watch my brothers kill each other, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Just like there is nothing you can do to stop Sam from dying. How can you not understand that I just want it to be over! You’d think you could relate.”
Sam blinked, the “What?” escaping his mouth in a mind-numbing matter. He glanced at Dean, who the archangel was staring so fiercely at.
“Oh, you sorry sons of bitches,” Gabriel breathed out, shaking his head with realization. “What did you think all of this was about? It was a warning . Sam, you’re going to die. It has to happen, so it will happen. There’s nothing you or your brother can do to stop it.
“And Dean.” The archangel turning his gaze to the furious older hunter, whose face was so stony any mortal man would fear for his life. “You’re going to be there. You’re going to be right there as Sam dies, and you won’t be able to stop it. You’re going to sell your soul to make it right, because you can’t live with knowing you couldn’t save him. You proved that. Again. And again. And again.”
“In a game ,” the older Winchester bit back, taking another step forward only to have his brother bring him up short once more, hand to his upper chest. “A sick, twisted game .”
“It’s going to happen in the real world too, bucko. As it happened in Heaven, so it must happen on Earth. Might as well get it over with.” Gabe sighed at the end of his gritted, bitten out response, suddenly exhausted. This was going nowhere, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. He felt bad for these two morons, who couldn’t accept the fate headed their way.
He looked away for a moment, wanting nothing more than to leave this conversation behind in a beat of wings, before clearing his throat. “So. Boys. Now what? We stare deep in each other’s’ eyes for the rest of eternity?”
The older of the two hunters sneered at him, while the younger just looked disappointed. Gabe found it incredibly annoying how much that bothered him and brutally shoved it aside.
“Well, first of all,” Dean squared his shoulders, drawing himself up to a demanding height, “you’re gonna bring Cas back from wherever you stashed him.”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Him?”
“Her. Whatever,” Dean growled, managing not to roll his eyes in annoyance. Really, he was supposed to be the backwards one. Why was everyone else so caught up on gender? “Bring Cas back. Snap to it.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed once more, neither liking being ordered about, nor the order itself. “Aaaand if I say no?”
“We're gonna deep-fry ourselves an archangel.” Dean’s grin was purely predatory, and even though he was pretty sure the hunter was bluffing, a shudder ran through Gabe regardless as he glanced at the dancing flames encircling him.
Dean’s eyes narrowed when Gabe didn’t ‘snap to it.’ He raised his head to the ceiling and called out in prayer, “Cas?”
The imprisoned archangel’s brow furled, looking dark and dangerous, Sam thought. But also uncertain. Like he’d possibly approached this whole thing on the wrong foot and was now reconsidering. Sam supposed being surrounded by one of the few things capable of killing you would make anyone feel like that. Still, the younger Winchester waited with baited breath for the faint sound of wingbeats and the arrival of their angel.
When nothing happened, he got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, formed entirely around what his impulsive older brother might do next.
Dean, still glaring daggers at the encircled archangel, pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket and hit the speed-dial for Cas. It didn’t even ring, just immediately switched over to the beep-beep-beep and the pre-recorded voice of a woman informing him the number he dialed was no longer in service. He hit the end button hard enough to damage the phone.
Gabe gave a sheepish grimace, raising his hands in the face of all that fury, and a fire far too close for comfort. “Now look-”
“Where is he?” Dean snapped, and for a moment the archangel was taken aback by the look in the hunter’s eyes. Then his own narrowed.
“ She’s fine. For now.”
Sam immediately took a half step closer to his brother, muttering Dean’s name warningly. He knew Dean would have picked up on that threat, and he was absolutely worried it would tip his brother’s rage to a boiling point. And while Dean’s fists curled and his shoulders shook with tension, he didn’t move. Or deep fry the archangel.
“Let Castiel go,” Sam insisted, keeping his voice firm but more reasonable than his brother’s. “And we’ll put the fire out.”
For a moment, fear flickered across Gabriel’s face before he covered it with anger. “Come on, guys. Try to see my side, here. You don’t let me out, Cas is dead.”
Sam’s gut twisted, realizing he’d given the archangel all the ammo he needed to turn the tables one-eighty on them. But Dean just scoffed, arms crossed over his chest, eyes never leaving the archangel.
“No, he- she isn’t.”
His words were backed with such confidence, both brother and angel were left blinking. Sam knew where that confidence came from; the archangel did not. Still, Gabe recovered first, burying the increasing feelings of unease. There was something up with Dean Winchester. Something… wrong. Something off script. But he had bigger, hotter, flame-related problems to deal with right now. Getting out of that was priority numero uno.
“Yeah?” he asked, putting more bravado into his tone than he necessarily felt. “You willing to risk her life on it?”
“Yeah, I am.” Dean uncrossed his arms, leveling a finger at him. “Because you may be a giant douchebag, but you’re not a killer.”
Beside him, Sam whipped his head his way. “Dude, he just spent weeks killing us .”
Even as he said it, Gabe gestured wildly with his bound rests, as if to say ‘Listen to your brother! He’s the smart one!’ But Dean wasn’t listening. He didn’t need to; he knew this angel.
“Oh, he may not give a shit about anyone else’s family, but he won’t hurt Cas,” Dean continued, speaking to Sam but never taking his eyes off Gabriel. “He’s your brother.”
“I got thousands of those,” Gabe shrugged with pretty convincing nonchalance. Sam glanced at Dean, but the man from the future wasn’t buying in.
“Yeah, but they matter to you, don’t they? Every single one of ‘em. You can’t even fight against the literal devil, cuz he’s family,” Dean scoffed, the judgment in his eyes all-consuming. It only made Gabriel angrier, and the archangel really didn’t want to reflect on why that was. Instead, he buried that rage beneath the hypocrisy of Dean Winchester judging anyone for loving their brother too much. “You’re definitely not gonna kill the one angel that actually deserves that title. You may rough him up a bit, throw your weight around as a big brother, but you’d never kill one of your own. You don’t have it in you.”
Gabriel was breathing deep, even breaths to keep his calm, but he couldn’t keep the growing fury off his face. There was a power building around them. A tension Sam could practically feel. It reminded him of the terror he’d felt when they first summoned Castiel, only more powerful. But Dean never wavered, and Sam still didn’t know how his brother did it. How he stood so strong and confident in front of the wrath of an archangel.
“You just love your brothers too damn much,” Dean finished burying the knife, then twisted it. “ That is gonna be the death of you, Gabriel.”
There was a finality to that statement that left the warehouse and its occupants in a tense silence. Sam had heard such certainty coming from his brother before, and now he had no doubt the archangel in front of them did die where Dean came from. There was something tragic about that. Sam found himself wanting to change it.
“Help us,” he tried one last time, pleading with the archangel. “We can change it. We have to try.”
Gabe stared at the younger Winchester and, for just a moment, let himself imagine a different future. But he knew it couldn’t be. He knew his family. And hoping – dreaming – would only hurt worse in the long run. “I’m sorry. But you’re going to fail. And I’m not letting Castiel go down with that ship.”
“That’s not your call to make,” Dean growled, taking another step forward. His chest burned the closer he got to the flames, but he ignored the pain; it was manageable for now. “Cas can make his own damn decisions.”
Gabriel actually snorted. “Wow. Have you tried saying that in a mirror lately, Mr. Big Brother?”
Sam grabbed Dean’s shoulder with strong, bruising fingers to keep him from rising to that jab. (Not that the archangel was entirely wrong, though Sam definitely didn’t need to add his opinion to this mess.)
“You have to know Heaven is corrupt at this point. They’re not even going to try and stop the end of the world!” Sam tried a different angle of attack, the honest desperation clear in his voice. “Castiel isn’t safe up there. She’s safer with us-”
“Ha!” Gabriel leaned his head back and laughed loud and long. “Safe? Safe ? Cassie’s grace is a Dad-damn mess . That didn’t happen in Heaven, I promise you that.”
“What?” Sam’s eyes widened in surprise, and he glanced between his brother and the archangel. “She- she got hurt in a demonic trap, but-”
“And how, exactly, did she end up in a demon’s trap?” Gabriel snapped out. “Pretty sure that never would have happened if she hadn’t gotten tangled up with you two chuckleheads.”
“She is helping us stop the end of the world!” Dean yelled, fists curled and face red with rage. Not all of that anger was for Gabriel, but taking it out on him was easier at the moment than facing his own guilt. “While you sit on your ass-”
The chipped and broken windows high up on the walls shattered completely with a thunderclap of power. Sam flinched, the pressure that had been building finally popping with enough tangible force to feel like a slap across his entire body. Gabriel was still imprisoned within the circle, leather bindings smoking but thankfully intact. His face was a myriad of emotions, fury the primary one.
“You shut your cakehole,” he hissed and spat, eyes locked on Dean Winchester. “That is my sister you are talking about, you mud monkey, and you are going to get her killed! I am protecting her by keeping her away from you!”
If Dean was taken aback by the ferocity of Gabriel’s defense, he didn’t show it. The confession, more than anything, proved Dean’s point that the angel could never hurt Castiel. Not really.
“Cas is the best of all of you,” he growled, voice low and dangerous. “The only one in your family worth a damn. Keeping him from us isn’t gonna save him from anything. He’ll make his own damn decision – and it’s gonna be the right one – with or without input from me or you.”
Gabriel’s jaw snapped shut, clenched in an angry silence that covered a turmoil of emotions.
“So. You gonna let him go, or are we walking out of here with that fire left burning?” Dean’s voice was a no-nonsense threat, and everyone heard it loud and clear.
The muscle in Gabe’s jaw flexed as he ground his teeth, but he didn’t say a word. Dean scoffed and turned away.
“So what? You’re just gonna… you’re gonna leave me here forever?” There was a vein of panic in the archangel’s voice, but Dean didn’t stop walking. Sam stared after his brother, even as he felt the angel’s angry gaze shift his way. “Sam? Come on, Sam.”
Dean pushed the nearest exit door open with a harsh squeal of metal. It slammed shut in his wake, and the younger Winchester turned back to the imprisoned angel. A tense quiet filled the space between them, Sam not quite meeting Gabe’s fierce eyes.
“Can you heal her?”
Gabriel blinked, taken aback at the soft question. “What?”
Sam’s brown eyes met his, and they were so damn earnest, Gabe found himself blinking again. “Castiel. You said her grace was…. Can you help her?”
It was Gabe’s turn to look away. He hadn’t meant to reveal all that. To let slip how conflicted he’d felt seeing the damage to his sister’s grace. It had been a long time since he’d been around any of his siblings. It was frustrating, really, to find himself so quickly returning to old habits. Caring.
“Yeah,” he muttered, still not looking into those stupidly desperate brown eyes. To acknowledge that maybe these humans cared about Cassie the same way he did when all physical evidence was to the contrary. “I’ll help her.”
Sam nodded, expression thankful and comforted. Gabe looked away again.
When the younger hunter turned and started walking away, however, his gaze snapped back. “Hey! Come on, seriously? You gotta let me out!” But Sam kept walking, so the archangel raised his voice. “I can’t help her if I’m trapped here, you know!”
When Sam got to the door he paused, turning to meet Gabe’s eyes. He reached over to the fire alarm on the wall beside the door and pulled the handle. Water sprang from the ceiling in a shower of droplets, and Gabe looked up at the ceiling, squinting in the rainfall.
“Just…don’t hurt her, okay? She’s our family too, Gabriel.”
The clinking sound of something metallic and small bouncing across the cement floor drew Gabriel’s gaze back down. The key to the handcuffs was just feet away, glinting in the firelight. The archangel turned his admittedly surprised – though no less pissed – gaze to the warehouse door, but Sam Winchester was gone.
The flames – sputtering, sizzling, and flickering – died down around him.
-o-o-o-
The Impala was right outside of the warehouse, and Dean had to close his eyes against the frustration of having no memory of parking her there. He simply had to trust that he had, and Gabe hadn’t messed with his baby. They really needed to get her angel proofed. Soon as they figured out how to exclude Cas from the warding.
Dean was waiting in the driver’s seat, checking over Baby’s interior, when Sam came out of the warehouse. He closed the door slowly behind him, face pensive. Once he was safely in the passenger seat, Dean pulled away from the building.
“I triggered the sprinkler system,” Sam confessed quietly, some miles later. He was staring out the window. Had been since they’d left the archangel behind. When Dean didn’t say anything, he added, as if to explain himself, “Sometimes to gain trust, you have to give it first.”
The man from the future cleared his throat, staring straight ahead as the seconds ticked by. Eventually, he nodded. He’d sort of figured that’s what Sam had done, anyway. It’s what they’d done last time. And Cas probably would be better off if the archangel made it back to her sooner rather than later.
“You’re not wrong,” he admitted, the words thick in his throat. “And I’m not gonna tell you it was the wrong move, either. Time’ll tell.”
Sam let out a quiet sigh and Dean merged the Impala onto the nearest highway, pointed towards Ohio’s southwestern border. From there they’d turn due west, heading for South Dakota.
“What about Cas?”
The younger Winchester almost didn’t ask the question, worried about the response it might trigger in his brother. But Cas deserved better than Sam’s avoidance. She was one of them, and they were leaving her behind for lack of any other option. He understood it, but it didn’t sit right with him. He knew it wouldn’t be sitting right with Dean, either.
“She’ll be alright, for now,” the man from the future acknowledged begrudgingly.
He was pissed, of course, but less at Gabriel than he thought he’d be. No, at this point his anger had reached a higher level. He was sick of getting his angel back only to lose her to one thing or another. It was like Time itself disliked her presence this early in the timeline and kept stealing her away. Dean was getting real, real damn tired of it. Of feeling like there wasn’t anything he could do to stop it from happening.
She would be alright, though. At least this time she was with a brother Dean knew wouldn’t hurt her. Unlike with Uriel, Dean didn’t have to worry. Well, as much. He was still going to worry plenty, and pray about as much. Because Cas was being held prisoner by one of her douchebag family members hellbent on keeping her away from the dirty, useless humans.
Dean really hated angels. All of ‘em except Cas, of course.
“How do we get her back?”
The older Winchester sighed, part exhaustion, part frustration. They had no leverage on Gabe, not for averting the apocalypse and not for bargaining Cas’s return. Dean rubbed his chest, which seemed to ache with sympathy for his plight.
“I’m working on it,” is what he said, even though he had no plan. He didn’t even have the beginnings of a plan. But he’d figure out a way. Hell, He’d gone to Heaven and back to get her last time. Gabe couldn’t be nearly as much of a pain in the ass as that.
At least, he friggin’ hoped not.