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Title: Birds of Passage
Author: neotoma
Artist:cashay
Genre/Pairing: (slash & drama), Sam/Gabriel/Vessel
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~61,000
Warnings/Spoilers: gore/animal sacrifice, gore, implied past abuse, gore/torture, homophobia/transphobia, set post-S5 SPN/ S1 Jericho
Summary: Lucifer is back in his Cage, but one averted Apocalypse doesn't mean much in the face of another, more human one. Sam Winchester, the Archangel Gabriel, and a man millennia out of his own time have wandered into a small Kansas town, where they get to deal with tree thieves, suspicious sheriffs, shady characters, political in-fighting, looming starvation, and the occasional pagan deity passing through. It's just one damn thing on top of another after The End of the World. [Crossover with JERICHO (tv series)]
Part Seven: every backroad in that broken promise land
It was morning when Thor came up the drive with his goat-drawn chariot. Sam was sipping awful herb tea, and looking out over the farm. The kids had taken it upon themselves to get the cows milked today, which was just fine with him, since he was still exhausted and Hrafn didn't currently have hands. Though the feathers were kind of pretty, and he'd been having fun hopping from one chair-back perch to another. Sam wasn't sure he'd eaten yet, not sure that he even needed to eat like that.
So when he caught sight of Thor outside the door, Sam placed Hrafn on his shoulder like a piratical parrot, and went out onto the porch.
"Sam..." Gabriel slurred from where he was draped upside down in Thor's arms, like the world's biggest housecat. He looked drunk, and ill. There were blisters on his face, over the thin skin at the corner of his eyes and the bridge of his nose – the way Lucifer had looked, once.
"What the hell happened?!" Sam yelled, and hustled Gabriel over to a couch.
"Eagle-chieftain?" Hrafn croaked, and hopped onto Gabriel's lap, and began plucking at his hair.
"Shit, you look like a mess. I'll get my kit..."
The door to the downstairs bedroom flung open, and Jimmy and Jake staggered out, looking very much like they'd slept in their clothes. Which they had. Jake had the sense to put his gun back in the room when he saw that it was Gabriel again.
"Oh..."
"Where's Bill?" Jimmy asked, coming around Jake where he was standing flummoxed.
Gabriel looked up from where he was petting Hrafn's soul-form. He frowned blearily, as if he couldn't quite remember who Jake was, or why he'd be asking about Bill.
"He's following," Thor said from where he stood by the door. "You understand why I didn't want to travel with your friend and his brothers, I hope."
Sam nodded, "They're godslayers, you're a god, bad combo, yes."
Thor snorted, then ventured over to the couch, and put a hand on Gabriel's shoulder. "You, my friend, are a menace and a terror, and I hope we don't meet again for a very long time."
"I love you too, Thor."
"Good luck with him, Sam Winchester," Thor snorted, and nodded to Jimmy and Jake as he headed out the door. He left in a clatter of bleating goats and a clap of thunder.
Jake waited on the couch, staring worriedly out the window. Sam had gone to do his daily work, but Hrafn and the angel – he still had trouble with the bird being Hrafn and the body being an angel, even though he'd seen been in that barn, he'd seen a lot of crazy things – were on the couch. Well, the angel was drowsing, eyes closed and head nodding, and the bird was fussing over him from the back of the couch. Jimmy had mustered up to go into town to get Kim, and call off the rest of the searchers, and Stanley and Mimi were somewhere, maybe out on the other side of the house, cooking or gardening, or something. Jake had been left to watch Hrafn and his angel, and wait for Bill's promised arrival.
There was a bang on the door – rat tat tat, rat tat tat – and Jake sprang to the door.
The two dark faces on the other side made him want to slam the door in their faces. Instead he barked out, "Where the hell is Bill?!"
Yuri Koltsemirov reached into his jacket and pulled out... a duckling? No, it was too big for a duckling, but it was some fuzzy baby waterfowl.
"What the fuck is–?"
"Little brother Vali's true shape was a surprise to us as well," the red-head next to Koltsemirov rumbled.
"Hrólf? That you?" came the angel's voice, slurring and weak-sounding.
Hrólf (not Ralph, not the big red dog that had played endless rounds of 'fetch' in the park with all the kids who wanted to throw things for him) shouldered past Jake into the house. Koltsemirov followed, clucking to the bird.
"Hey," the angel mumbled, smiling up at them. "Is that... wow, that's a surprise."
"What is that?" Jake asked.
"Vali," the angel said, stroking a finger over the fuzzy yellow head.
"Your friend Bill," Kolsemirov said, "I truly thought he'd be a weasel, at the core."
"Vali-Gaesling," Hrólf chuckled. "It fits. Loyal, protective, prone to bite..."
"He's a goose?!"
"Not yet," the angel murmured. "This is a gosling." He pet the fuzzy head again, and then handed the bird to Koltsemirov. "Take him upstairs, Jori. Put him to bed. He should revert to human shape, soon, I think?"
The raven hopped onto Koltemirov's shoulder as he took the gosling into his arms. The raven croaked, "Put him in my room, serpent-child. The bed is big enough."
Bill woke in an unfamiliar room, on an unfamiliar bed, and had a horrible moment of complete disorientation.
"You're in Hrafn and Sam's room, in the Richmond house."
Bill froze, and then sat up.
The person sitting in the chair by the window looked like Hrafn Friththjófsson, at least at first. But the longer Bill looked at him, the more he could see – the light shining under his skin, and the crackling fury fanning out after him in a train of wings hundreds deep.
"You're... who are you?"
"You know who I am."
"No, no I don't," Bill snapped. "I remember Loki, I remember him being my father, once, but I remember a lot of fathers. A lot of mothers, too. And I have no idea who you are."
"Hrafn's angel."
"What is your name?" Bill demanded.
The angel looked infinitely sad for a moment, under the scabs and bruises, and then said, "Gabriel. My Father named me Gabriel."
Bill stared. "Gabriel's in the Bible."
The angel raised an eyebrow.
"Holy crap.." Bill looked at Gabriel, "What does that make me? Half-angel, half-human, that's got to–"
"Sigyn was a goddess, not a human. I'd never have a child with a human."
"Humans not good enough for you?"
Gabriel shook his head. "Angels aren't good enough for humans – we corrupt their children when we try to breed with them, only passing on soullessness to the nephilim – the offspring. And then I have to kill them."
Bill froze at that. "I have a soul, don't I?"
Gabriel looked apologetic. "Sort of. You have something like my Grace."
"But it's not a soul?"
"Not a human soul, no."
Bill shivered. If he didn't have a soul...
"You're are not damned, William," Gabriel said.
"But I can't be saved either, if I don't have a soul–"
"Narfi didn't extinguish when he was killed, not like an angel would have. After you die, you'll go on."
"Alone. Without Kim..."
"Maybe. I don't know what will happen to you. You believe in my Father – that might make a difference. You might go to the Heaven that humans get."
Bill rubbed his hands over his face – it was a lot to take in, and it made him heartsick to think on. Also he had all sorts of crazy recollections coming at him, every time he looked at anything. In fact...
He looked at the angel, and asked, "Did I jump out an airplane?"
"You were a paratrooper, once."
Bill nodded. He remembered that, and the sheer delight he'd had in the fall. Obviously, he'd been a crazy bastard in some of his lives. Speaking of crazy..."Was I a goose..?"
"I thought you'd be a weasel, actually. That surprised us all. Even Jake."
"Oh god, Jake.... Jimmy! Everyone saw–"
"Four of your friends saw, plus your brothers. And me. And Sam Winchester – who has a lot bigger fish to fry than one minor pagan god. And Hrafn, who is even weirder than you, when it comes down to it. Don't let it worry you."
Bill nodded. He could deal with things later, but there was one thing he wanted to know, now that he had some facts. "You said you wouldn't have a kid with a human..."
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "And...?"
"What did you do to me? Kim and I – I love Linh, I do – but we tried for so long..."
Gabriel sighed. "I'm sorry, kiddo. I truly am. But you can't have kids with humans. It's too dangerous, for them."
Bill swallowed at that, and felt completely ashamed of himself when he began to cry.
He barely noticed when the angel came out of his chair and sat beside him. But when Gabriel put his arms around him, Bill turned into that embrace.
"Faeder," he mumbled, "Faeder."
"Ah, Vali, my own, my nestling," Gabriel said, and stroked his hair.
The rumble of a car made Mimi look up from where she was trying to assemble lunch out of corn meal and smoked horse shank – sort of an osso buco variant, except much less exciting. Fortunately the cookware was fairly tolerant of fire, and the fireplace wasn't too bad to cook in now that she had experience (and Sam and Hrafn had jerry-rigged stands for the pots, so it was mostly a matter of having the fire banked and time to let things braise and simmer to get something edible.
She had expected the knock at the door, and was already over there yanking it open before the first ratatat faded.
"Daddy!" Linh Koehler cried, rushing in and around Mimi, and heading straight for the couch to tackle Bill in a hug. The deputy made a face at the treatment, and swallowed what must have been a whimper – Mimi had seen his ribs a few hours ago, when Sam was wrapping them, and he was purple and fading yellow from collarbones down to his waist, and probably further. Those monsters hadn't been pulling punches.
"Bill..." Kim said, much quieter. Mimi smiled sympathetically, and took the baby from her as she brushed past to hug her husband, more carefully than their daughter, but with no less urgency.
Mimi smiled, and when Eric Sharpnack came in, looking very worried about his foster parents, she gave the boy a one-armed hug and shoved him gently towards the couch.
It was so touching that Mimi felt herself misting up, but she knew she'd deny it if anyone caught her at it. Which of course was when she heard soft footsteps on the stairs, and Hrafn – or whoever he was today – came down the steps, barefoot and oddly vulnerable looking with his blisters and bruises. He'd come out of everything looking worse than Bill, in some respects.
Mimi caught his eye as he settled down on the steps, and looked at the Koehlers through the railing. He smiled a little ruefully, and wrapped his hands over his knees.
"–did you get that jacket?" Kim was asking, when Mimi turned back to pay attention.
Bill fingered the leather garment he was wearing over a soft sweater borrowed from Hrafn – it was hardly like he could borrow Sam or Stanley's clothes, after all. Mimi knew exactly why it had drawn Kim's attention, besides being something other than his deputy's jacket. It was kind of fashion-forward, which was not Bill at all. The leather was cut and seamed to show off waist and shoulders, and had a faint feathery texture all over.
"I..." Bill trailed off, as if he couldn't remember.
"It's a gift, if you like," Hrafn said – clearly, plainly.
Mimi stared at him, completely astonished. The words had been unaccented, the vowels American. Hrafn blinked up at her lizard-like, unflappable, as Kim thanked him, and went back to clucking over Bill.
Mimi didn't know what to say, to the person who she didn't think was Hrafn, for all that he looked at her with Hrafn's light hazel eyes and wore Hrafn's pajamas with one of Sam's hoodies topping it all.
She was saved, or at least distracted, by little Linh walking over and asking, "Can I have one of your flowers?"
Not-actually-Hrafn's eyebrows shot up, and he looked at Linh in surprise. "You can see my ... flowers?"
"Can I have one?" the little girl asked again.
"You can have one if you can pick one out yourself."
Linh smiled at that, and reached up to not-Hrafn's head, and pulled a flower out from behind his ear, as if she were a stage magician pulling a trick. But it wasn't a paper flower in her hand, no magician's trick at all. The little girl had a flower, like a white six-pointed star with a splash of yellow in the center, in her hand. She grinned in satisfaction, and walked back to her parents with her prize.
"Where," Mimi asked with quiet ferocity, "did you get a Madonna lily?!"
"She shouldn't have been able to do that. Unless..." not-Hrafn stared at Linh.
"Hey," Mimi hissed, "Back here, buddy."
The man blinked, then smiled. It wasn't as sweet as Hrafn's smile, and it was creepy to see that familiar face move in ways that weren't quite right.
"You, Loki, or whoever you are, answer the question. Where did you get a Madonna lily?"
"They're my flower... but she should be human. I think Bill leaks."
"Leaks?"
"Grace, yes. He leaks. I think Linh will be great, and I think all will be well."
Mimi frowned at him, and turned back to watching the Koehlers – Kim was trying to help Bill off the couch, and while he wasn't that tall, neither was Kim and they were wobbling in that way that Mimi thought meant she might have to intervene.
"I don't trust you."
"You're in good company, Mimi Clark. I'm not exactly a tame lion, if you know what I mean..."
Mimi boggled. "You've read C.S. Lewis? Hrafn's delusional other personality, the part of him that is an angel, and you're the part that reads fantasy novels?"
"I'm not a delusion, Mimi."
"Right, because you're an angel."
"Yes."
"You don't have an angel name. Hrafn calls you 'Oswald'"
"Asvald. Hrafn calls me 'Asvald'. It means 'Godly Might'."
"That's not an angel name."
"Yes it is. Asvald. 'Godly Might', 'Might of God', same difference, really."
Mimi frowned... what name meant 'Might of God'?
"That you're going to have to look up yourself," not-Hrafn said, and levered himself off the steps to go bug Kim and Bill with his quiet yet smug presence.
The exchange would bug Mimi for a long time, at least until she got to a library... and found a baby name book. Finding 'Gabriel' didn't make her less anxious, it just changed her reasons for her nerves. The bastard did it on purpose, she was sure, later.
Hrafn waited on the footboard of the bed. The house was quieting down, now that Jake and Bill and Jimmy were gone (Bill after a tearful reunion with his wife) and the day’s work was done. He heard Sam on the stairs, and looked up when Sam slipped into the room. Gabriel looked up too, from where he was sitting by the window. He'd stayed there every since Bill had headed downstairs, looking out into the slowly greening farmland.
"Gabriel..." Sam said.
"Hmm," his angel replied.
"That's Hrafn's body."
"Yes?"
"Don't you think you should let him back in it?"
"Yeah," Gabriel chuckled ruefully, "Except I'm not sure how to get him back in here, and this body will explode soon if I don't get a soul back in it. I don't know how Lucifer managed after he killed his Vessel–"
"Drank demon's blood to strengthen it," Sam said.
Hrafn cackled at the face Gabriel made.
"Yeah, let's not do that... but you said you need Hrafn's soul?"
"Angels have to have souls in our Vessels. Otherwise we fry them," Gabriel touched his face, fingers flitting over the scabs at the corners of his eyes and the bridge of his nose, "from the inside out."
"That's why you have to have consent?"
"Part of it, yeah."
Sam was frowning. "Can't you do whatever you'd do to his body if you were stuffing his soul back in for a resurrection? Cas did that, so you should be–"
"It's not the same from the inside," Gabriel said tetchily. "There's no... leverage... from in here.
"Well, then, how about you get out of there and–"
"I'll die if I'm not in a Vessel."
Hrafn cawed at that, and hopped into Gabriel's lap. "You are that weak, my eagle-chieftain?" he asked, looking up at Gabriel.
Gabriel made an embarrassed, disgusted face.
"Jeez, Gabriel," Sam groaned. "I thought getting your Horn back would have helped."
"I drained all the Grace I left in it to take out Tezcatlipoca."
"Oh."
Hrafn hopped onto the arm of Gabriel's chair, and looked the angel in the eye. "You cannot put me back in my body from the outside."
"Nope."
"And you can't leave my body without dissolving?"
"I can't survive outside of a Vessel at the moment, no."
Hrafn gave Gabriel a look, being unable to roll his eyes in this shape, then turned to Sam.
"Yeah, Hrafn, he's an idiot."
"Hey!" Gabriel protested.
"Gabriel, I'm a Vessel. One for an archangel, to boot."
Gabriel froze, and then melted into the most appallingly hopeful look. "I didn't think to ask, kiddo. I know you hated dealing with Lucifer."
"Because he was the Devil."
"Ask, eagle-chieftain," Hrafn laughed, and poked the angel with his beak.
"Sam, can I take you as a Vessel, just long enough to stuff Hrafn back into his own body?"
"Yes."
Gabriel smiled, and sighed. Hrafn mantled his wings and ducked low as the archangel flowed out of his body and into Sam. It was disturbing to see his own body slump in the chair, like a discarded doll.
"None of that, Hrafn," Sam's voice said, and Sam's hands wrapped around him, but Hrafn could feel how it was Gabriel, crackling like ice, like lightning, under Sam's skin as the archangel took him and folded him and pushed him back into his body.
Hrafn gasped, and looked down at his fingers in confusion. He already missed his wings. He looked up, at his angel, smiling cock-eyed out of Sam's body.
"It is very odd seeing you in Sam," Hrafn told his angel. "And very odd being alone in my own mind."
"You lonely?" Gabriel asked, making Sam's familiar features move in ways that they normally didn't.
"Yes. Very."
"And I don't fit in Sam very well – let me back in?" Gabriel asked.
"Oh, eagle-chieftain," Hrafn laughed, and pulled Gabriel down into a kiss, deciding that if he only had this chance, he would not waste it. Gabriel made a muffled squeak, but kissed back...
and then flowed back, pouring from Sam's body back into Hrafn's, where he belonged, moored under Hrafn's heart.
Previous / Next
Author: neotoma
Artist:cashay
Genre/Pairing: (slash & drama), Sam/Gabriel/Vessel
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~61,000
Warnings/Spoilers: gore/animal sacrifice, gore, implied past abuse, gore/torture, homophobia/transphobia, set post-S5 SPN/ S1 Jericho
Summary: Lucifer is back in his Cage, but one averted Apocalypse doesn't mean much in the face of another, more human one. Sam Winchester, the Archangel Gabriel, and a man millennia out of his own time have wandered into a small Kansas town, where they get to deal with tree thieves, suspicious sheriffs, shady characters, political in-fighting, looming starvation, and the occasional pagan deity passing through. It's just one damn thing on top of another after The End of the World. [Crossover with JERICHO (tv series)]
Part Seven: every backroad in that broken promise land
It was morning when Thor came up the drive with his goat-drawn chariot. Sam was sipping awful herb tea, and looking out over the farm. The kids had taken it upon themselves to get the cows milked today, which was just fine with him, since he was still exhausted and Hrafn didn't currently have hands. Though the feathers were kind of pretty, and he'd been having fun hopping from one chair-back perch to another. Sam wasn't sure he'd eaten yet, not sure that he even needed to eat like that.
So when he caught sight of Thor outside the door, Sam placed Hrafn on his shoulder like a piratical parrot, and went out onto the porch.
"Sam..." Gabriel slurred from where he was draped upside down in Thor's arms, like the world's biggest housecat. He looked drunk, and ill. There were blisters on his face, over the thin skin at the corner of his eyes and the bridge of his nose – the way Lucifer had looked, once.
"What the hell happened?!" Sam yelled, and hustled Gabriel over to a couch.
"Eagle-chieftain?" Hrafn croaked, and hopped onto Gabriel's lap, and began plucking at his hair.
"Shit, you look like a mess. I'll get my kit..."
The door to the downstairs bedroom flung open, and Jimmy and Jake staggered out, looking very much like they'd slept in their clothes. Which they had. Jake had the sense to put his gun back in the room when he saw that it was Gabriel again.
"Oh..."
"Where's Bill?" Jimmy asked, coming around Jake where he was standing flummoxed.
Gabriel looked up from where he was petting Hrafn's soul-form. He frowned blearily, as if he couldn't quite remember who Jake was, or why he'd be asking about Bill.
"He's following," Thor said from where he stood by the door. "You understand why I didn't want to travel with your friend and his brothers, I hope."
Sam nodded, "They're godslayers, you're a god, bad combo, yes."
Thor snorted, then ventured over to the couch, and put a hand on Gabriel's shoulder. "You, my friend, are a menace and a terror, and I hope we don't meet again for a very long time."
"I love you too, Thor."
"Good luck with him, Sam Winchester," Thor snorted, and nodded to Jimmy and Jake as he headed out the door. He left in a clatter of bleating goats and a clap of thunder.
Jake waited on the couch, staring worriedly out the window. Sam had gone to do his daily work, but Hrafn and the angel – he still had trouble with the bird being Hrafn and the body being an angel, even though he'd seen been in that barn, he'd seen a lot of crazy things – were on the couch. Well, the angel was drowsing, eyes closed and head nodding, and the bird was fussing over him from the back of the couch. Jimmy had mustered up to go into town to get Kim, and call off the rest of the searchers, and Stanley and Mimi were somewhere, maybe out on the other side of the house, cooking or gardening, or something. Jake had been left to watch Hrafn and his angel, and wait for Bill's promised arrival.
There was a bang on the door – rat tat tat, rat tat tat – and Jake sprang to the door.
The two dark faces on the other side made him want to slam the door in their faces. Instead he barked out, "Where the hell is Bill?!"
Yuri Koltsemirov reached into his jacket and pulled out... a duckling? No, it was too big for a duckling, but it was some fuzzy baby waterfowl.
"What the fuck is–?"
"Little brother Vali's true shape was a surprise to us as well," the red-head next to Koltsemirov rumbled.
"Hrólf? That you?" came the angel's voice, slurring and weak-sounding.
Hrólf (not Ralph, not the big red dog that had played endless rounds of 'fetch' in the park with all the kids who wanted to throw things for him) shouldered past Jake into the house. Koltsemirov followed, clucking to the bird.
"Hey," the angel mumbled, smiling up at them. "Is that... wow, that's a surprise."
"What is that?" Jake asked.
"Vali," the angel said, stroking a finger over the fuzzy yellow head.
"Your friend Bill," Kolsemirov said, "I truly thought he'd be a weasel, at the core."
"Vali-Gaesling," Hrólf chuckled. "It fits. Loyal, protective, prone to bite..."
"He's a goose?!"
"Not yet," the angel murmured. "This is a gosling." He pet the fuzzy head again, and then handed the bird to Koltsemirov. "Take him upstairs, Jori. Put him to bed. He should revert to human shape, soon, I think?"
The raven hopped onto Koltemirov's shoulder as he took the gosling into his arms. The raven croaked, "Put him in my room, serpent-child. The bed is big enough."
Bill woke in an unfamiliar room, on an unfamiliar bed, and had a horrible moment of complete disorientation.
"You're in Hrafn and Sam's room, in the Richmond house."
Bill froze, and then sat up.
The person sitting in the chair by the window looked like Hrafn Friththjófsson, at least at first. But the longer Bill looked at him, the more he could see – the light shining under his skin, and the crackling fury fanning out after him in a train of wings hundreds deep.
"You're... who are you?"
"You know who I am."
"No, no I don't," Bill snapped. "I remember Loki, I remember him being my father, once, but I remember a lot of fathers. A lot of mothers, too. And I have no idea who you are."
"Hrafn's angel."
"What is your name?" Bill demanded.
The angel looked infinitely sad for a moment, under the scabs and bruises, and then said, "Gabriel. My Father named me Gabriel."
Bill stared. "Gabriel's in the Bible."
The angel raised an eyebrow.
"Holy crap.." Bill looked at Gabriel, "What does that make me? Half-angel, half-human, that's got to–"
"Sigyn was a goddess, not a human. I'd never have a child with a human."
"Humans not good enough for you?"
Gabriel shook his head. "Angels aren't good enough for humans – we corrupt their children when we try to breed with them, only passing on soullessness to the nephilim – the offspring. And then I have to kill them."
Bill froze at that. "I have a soul, don't I?"
Gabriel looked apologetic. "Sort of. You have something like my Grace."
"But it's not a soul?"
"Not a human soul, no."
Bill shivered. If he didn't have a soul...
"You're are not damned, William," Gabriel said.
"But I can't be saved either, if I don't have a soul–"
"Narfi didn't extinguish when he was killed, not like an angel would have. After you die, you'll go on."
"Alone. Without Kim..."
"Maybe. I don't know what will happen to you. You believe in my Father – that might make a difference. You might go to the Heaven that humans get."
Bill rubbed his hands over his face – it was a lot to take in, and it made him heartsick to think on. Also he had all sorts of crazy recollections coming at him, every time he looked at anything. In fact...
He looked at the angel, and asked, "Did I jump out an airplane?"
"You were a paratrooper, once."
Bill nodded. He remembered that, and the sheer delight he'd had in the fall. Obviously, he'd been a crazy bastard in some of his lives. Speaking of crazy..."Was I a goose..?"
"I thought you'd be a weasel, actually. That surprised us all. Even Jake."
"Oh god, Jake.... Jimmy! Everyone saw–"
"Four of your friends saw, plus your brothers. And me. And Sam Winchester – who has a lot bigger fish to fry than one minor pagan god. And Hrafn, who is even weirder than you, when it comes down to it. Don't let it worry you."
Bill nodded. He could deal with things later, but there was one thing he wanted to know, now that he had some facts. "You said you wouldn't have a kid with a human..."
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "And...?"
"What did you do to me? Kim and I – I love Linh, I do – but we tried for so long..."
Gabriel sighed. "I'm sorry, kiddo. I truly am. But you can't have kids with humans. It's too dangerous, for them."
Bill swallowed at that, and felt completely ashamed of himself when he began to cry.
He barely noticed when the angel came out of his chair and sat beside him. But when Gabriel put his arms around him, Bill turned into that embrace.
"Faeder," he mumbled, "Faeder."
"Ah, Vali, my own, my nestling," Gabriel said, and stroked his hair.
The rumble of a car made Mimi look up from where she was trying to assemble lunch out of corn meal and smoked horse shank – sort of an osso buco variant, except much less exciting. Fortunately the cookware was fairly tolerant of fire, and the fireplace wasn't too bad to cook in now that she had experience (and Sam and Hrafn had jerry-rigged stands for the pots, so it was mostly a matter of having the fire banked and time to let things braise and simmer to get something edible.
She had expected the knock at the door, and was already over there yanking it open before the first ratatat faded.
"Daddy!" Linh Koehler cried, rushing in and around Mimi, and heading straight for the couch to tackle Bill in a hug. The deputy made a face at the treatment, and swallowed what must have been a whimper – Mimi had seen his ribs a few hours ago, when Sam was wrapping them, and he was purple and fading yellow from collarbones down to his waist, and probably further. Those monsters hadn't been pulling punches.
"Bill..." Kim said, much quieter. Mimi smiled sympathetically, and took the baby from her as she brushed past to hug her husband, more carefully than their daughter, but with no less urgency.
Mimi smiled, and when Eric Sharpnack came in, looking very worried about his foster parents, she gave the boy a one-armed hug and shoved him gently towards the couch.
It was so touching that Mimi felt herself misting up, but she knew she'd deny it if anyone caught her at it. Which of course was when she heard soft footsteps on the stairs, and Hrafn – or whoever he was today – came down the steps, barefoot and oddly vulnerable looking with his blisters and bruises. He'd come out of everything looking worse than Bill, in some respects.
Mimi caught his eye as he settled down on the steps, and looked at the Koehlers through the railing. He smiled a little ruefully, and wrapped his hands over his knees.
"–did you get that jacket?" Kim was asking, when Mimi turned back to pay attention.
Bill fingered the leather garment he was wearing over a soft sweater borrowed from Hrafn – it was hardly like he could borrow Sam or Stanley's clothes, after all. Mimi knew exactly why it had drawn Kim's attention, besides being something other than his deputy's jacket. It was kind of fashion-forward, which was not Bill at all. The leather was cut and seamed to show off waist and shoulders, and had a faint feathery texture all over.
"I..." Bill trailed off, as if he couldn't remember.
"It's a gift, if you like," Hrafn said – clearly, plainly.
Mimi stared at him, completely astonished. The words had been unaccented, the vowels American. Hrafn blinked up at her lizard-like, unflappable, as Kim thanked him, and went back to clucking over Bill.
Mimi didn't know what to say, to the person who she didn't think was Hrafn, for all that he looked at her with Hrafn's light hazel eyes and wore Hrafn's pajamas with one of Sam's hoodies topping it all.
She was saved, or at least distracted, by little Linh walking over and asking, "Can I have one of your flowers?"
Not-actually-Hrafn's eyebrows shot up, and he looked at Linh in surprise. "You can see my ... flowers?"
"Can I have one?" the little girl asked again.
"You can have one if you can pick one out yourself."
Linh smiled at that, and reached up to not-Hrafn's head, and pulled a flower out from behind his ear, as if she were a stage magician pulling a trick. But it wasn't a paper flower in her hand, no magician's trick at all. The little girl had a flower, like a white six-pointed star with a splash of yellow in the center, in her hand. She grinned in satisfaction, and walked back to her parents with her prize.
"Where," Mimi asked with quiet ferocity, "did you get a Madonna lily?!"
"She shouldn't have been able to do that. Unless..." not-Hrafn stared at Linh.
"Hey," Mimi hissed, "Back here, buddy."
The man blinked, then smiled. It wasn't as sweet as Hrafn's smile, and it was creepy to see that familiar face move in ways that weren't quite right.
"You, Loki, or whoever you are, answer the question. Where did you get a Madonna lily?"
"They're my flower... but she should be human. I think Bill leaks."
"Leaks?"
"Grace, yes. He leaks. I think Linh will be great, and I think all will be well."
Mimi frowned at him, and turned back to watching the Koehlers – Kim was trying to help Bill off the couch, and while he wasn't that tall, neither was Kim and they were wobbling in that way that Mimi thought meant she might have to intervene.
"I don't trust you."
"You're in good company, Mimi Clark. I'm not exactly a tame lion, if you know what I mean..."
Mimi boggled. "You've read C.S. Lewis? Hrafn's delusional other personality, the part of him that is an angel, and you're the part that reads fantasy novels?"
"I'm not a delusion, Mimi."
"Right, because you're an angel."
"Yes."
"You don't have an angel name. Hrafn calls you 'Oswald'"
"Asvald. Hrafn calls me 'Asvald'. It means 'Godly Might'."
"That's not an angel name."
"Yes it is. Asvald. 'Godly Might', 'Might of God', same difference, really."
Mimi frowned... what name meant 'Might of God'?
"That you're going to have to look up yourself," not-Hrafn said, and levered himself off the steps to go bug Kim and Bill with his quiet yet smug presence.
The exchange would bug Mimi for a long time, at least until she got to a library... and found a baby name book. Finding 'Gabriel' didn't make her less anxious, it just changed her reasons for her nerves. The bastard did it on purpose, she was sure, later.
Hrafn waited on the footboard of the bed. The house was quieting down, now that Jake and Bill and Jimmy were gone (Bill after a tearful reunion with his wife) and the day’s work was done. He heard Sam on the stairs, and looked up when Sam slipped into the room. Gabriel looked up too, from where he was sitting by the window. He'd stayed there every since Bill had headed downstairs, looking out into the slowly greening farmland.
"Gabriel..." Sam said.
"Hmm," his angel replied.
"That's Hrafn's body."
"Yes?"
"Don't you think you should let him back in it?"
"Yeah," Gabriel chuckled ruefully, "Except I'm not sure how to get him back in here, and this body will explode soon if I don't get a soul back in it. I don't know how Lucifer managed after he killed his Vessel–"
"Drank demon's blood to strengthen it," Sam said.
Hrafn cackled at the face Gabriel made.
"Yeah, let's not do that... but you said you need Hrafn's soul?"
"Angels have to have souls in our Vessels. Otherwise we fry them," Gabriel touched his face, fingers flitting over the scabs at the corners of his eyes and the bridge of his nose, "from the inside out."
"That's why you have to have consent?"
"Part of it, yeah."
Sam was frowning. "Can't you do whatever you'd do to his body if you were stuffing his soul back in for a resurrection? Cas did that, so you should be–"
"It's not the same from the inside," Gabriel said tetchily. "There's no... leverage... from in here.
"Well, then, how about you get out of there and–"
"I'll die if I'm not in a Vessel."
Hrafn cawed at that, and hopped into Gabriel's lap. "You are that weak, my eagle-chieftain?" he asked, looking up at Gabriel.
Gabriel made an embarrassed, disgusted face.
"Jeez, Gabriel," Sam groaned. "I thought getting your Horn back would have helped."
"I drained all the Grace I left in it to take out Tezcatlipoca."
"Oh."
Hrafn hopped onto the arm of Gabriel's chair, and looked the angel in the eye. "You cannot put me back in my body from the outside."
"Nope."
"And you can't leave my body without dissolving?"
"I can't survive outside of a Vessel at the moment, no."
Hrafn gave Gabriel a look, being unable to roll his eyes in this shape, then turned to Sam.
"Yeah, Hrafn, he's an idiot."
"Hey!" Gabriel protested.
"Gabriel, I'm a Vessel. One for an archangel, to boot."
Gabriel froze, and then melted into the most appallingly hopeful look. "I didn't think to ask, kiddo. I know you hated dealing with Lucifer."
"Because he was the Devil."
"Ask, eagle-chieftain," Hrafn laughed, and poked the angel with his beak.
"Sam, can I take you as a Vessel, just long enough to stuff Hrafn back into his own body?"
"Yes."
Gabriel smiled, and sighed. Hrafn mantled his wings and ducked low as the archangel flowed out of his body and into Sam. It was disturbing to see his own body slump in the chair, like a discarded doll.
"None of that, Hrafn," Sam's voice said, and Sam's hands wrapped around him, but Hrafn could feel how it was Gabriel, crackling like ice, like lightning, under Sam's skin as the archangel took him and folded him and pushed him back into his body.
Hrafn gasped, and looked down at his fingers in confusion. He already missed his wings. He looked up, at his angel, smiling cock-eyed out of Sam's body.
"It is very odd seeing you in Sam," Hrafn told his angel. "And very odd being alone in my own mind."
"You lonely?" Gabriel asked, making Sam's familiar features move in ways that they normally didn't.
"Yes. Very."
"And I don't fit in Sam very well – let me back in?" Gabriel asked.
"Oh, eagle-chieftain," Hrafn laughed, and pulled Gabriel down into a kiss, deciding that if he only had this chance, he would not waste it. Gabriel made a muffled squeak, but kissed back...
and then flowed back, pouring from Sam's body back into Hrafn's, where he belonged, moored under Hrafn's heart.
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