![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
GBB: Birds of Passage: Part Three
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 Three: the twigs and briars
Jake had been planning on spending Christmas on patrol, saving the day off for men and women with families to tend, but the Rangers took it upon themselves to reschedule him for a half-day off too. Which was why he was riding one of his mother's horses to the farm for Christmas dinner with his parents and Bonnie and Mimi, and Bonnie's boyfriend Sean and the farmhands.
Kat Brubaker's little sister was riding a borrowed pony beside him, snug and warm in a new coat that 'Sam and Hrafn gave me!' Jake had taken one look at that coat, and thought it looked suspiciously like someone had skinned and tanned a collie or two. Actually, considering Hrafn's utter pragmatism, the chance of that being the truth was disturbingly high. The man sometimes seemed dropped right off the moon for how little he cared for what people thought of him, and how oblivious he was to rules of behavior like: "don't make dogs into coats".
"Jake, honey, what is that?" Mom asked.
Dad urged his horse forward – still not the best of rider's, but good enough for what was effectively an easy trail ride from town to the farm. "What the hell?"
Jake looked at the electrical tower that sat just before the turnoff up Stanley's drive. Suspended from the trellised structure, hanging high enough that someone had to have climbed to reach them, were an eerie collection of bones and bottles, strung up like windchimes and weathervanes. There were lots of little skulls – rabbits and squirrel and odd translucent ones that he looked at in confusion before realizing they were duck and other birds – a few large ones, mostly cattle skulls, obvious and easily identifiable, or deer, but one that was weird, long and almost doglike with big sharp eyeteeth that Jake finally figured was a hog skull There were rib bones hanging in graceful arcs, and cut-off hooves positioned so they'd click against each other in the wind. And there were horse skulls in a wheel right in the middle – four of them, daubed with red and pointed outward.
"I don't have any idea," Jake said, "Let's keep going." Someone at the house knew what it was – someone at the house had to know what it was, because Bonnie and Mimi delivered milk to the grade school every day. No way could they miss that collection of weirdness being assembled.
"It's hunting magic," Jenny Brubaker said, as Jake hustled her past the grotesquerie. "Hrafn told me about it."
"What, honey?" his Mom asked.
"Hrafn told me – he said he was putting up a place for dead animals, so they wouldn't scare the live ones away," she frowned. "I didn't think it made a lot of sense, but Hrafn's a good hunter, so I guess he knows what he's doing."
Jake shared a glance and a grimace with his mother, and really hoped the kid had garbled Hrafn's explanation, because as good a farmhand and a hunter as the man was, it was looking more and more like he was also crazy as a loon. First his 'angel', now 'hunting magic' – Jake was going to have to ask Sam again what meds Hrafn used to take, in the hopes of scrounging up whatever anti-psychotics he needed. Of course, he was going to have to get past Sam's bad habit of ignoring reality in favor of his rosy-eyed glasses view of the world. And convincing Sam that his boyfriend was really out of touch enough to need help was going to be hard, because Hrafn did seem to be functional, at least with Sam's help.
"We hanged men from trees too," Hrafn said as he watched Mrs. Green trimming the tree with the kids. He seemed fascinated with the little Santa figures that Jenny was putting on the artificial fir that they'd dragged out of the attic, and less interested in the ball ornaments and tinsel..
'Does he mean–' Sam asked Gabriel.
'-sacrifice to Odin? Oh yeah. Though Hrafn's clan still held Tyr as their patron.'
"Don't mention that to the Greens," Sam told Hrafn.
Hrafn rolled his eyes, but patted Sam on the shoulder as he went into the kitchen with help Mimi with the venison roast. Sam sighed and smiled awkwardly when Mrs. Green looked up at him. He didn't think she approved of him or maybe it was him and Hrafn being together. Sleeping with a guy was presenting all new sorts of social roadblocks. No longer did people dismiss him as a drifter and a possible criminal; no, now some people acted like he was a threat to their kids. He was sleeping with an adult, and he had more than one person point him out as a person who shouldn't be around Bonnie or Kat. But not Sean, somehow, even though Sean was the boy and the entire town seemed to think he was gay, instead of bi (Sam reluctantly admitted 'bi' was the word – he enjoyed being with Hrafn, but he still liked women, with curves and dark hair and the soft squishiness of tits, even if he didn't pursue any of the single women his age in town).
And the gossip he'd overheard was just plain insulting – it would have been one thing if people had caught Hrafn as he carved and painted runes over ever bit of Jericho he could manage (Sam had nipped the idea of painting swastikas all over pretty fast – Thor's Hammer and the Helm of Awe were so much less recognizable and with much less bad history), but Hrafn had a knack for not doing it when people could catch him at it.
Dinner had gone well enough, early enough that the Greens would get back into town before it got so dark that no one could find their way, with Sam only occasionally wanting to stab himself with a fork when the conversation had gotten awkward between the Greens, or Sean and Bonnie had launched an ill-considered round of 'best holiday memories' which had ended with Jenny and Kat sniffling in the kitchen. At least Hrafn had the sense to edit his recollections to sound less insane, although Sam had 'heard' Gabriel helping to re-context them on the fly. He didn't like the way Mr. and Mrs. Green had given him a pitying look when Hrafn had mentioned his wife, or Mimi's narrowed eyes. At least Mimi had the grace to look a bit shame-faced when Hrafn had gone on to say that his family was dead. The Greens had just changed to looking at Sam like he was taking advantage of Hrafn's widowed state and presumed emotional vulnerability. As if – Hrafn was as tough as nails, and nearly as manipulative as Gabriel when he put the effort into it – Sam could believe he'd been a leader of men, once. Now, of course, he was an acolyte of a religion that was barely remembered and badly reconstructed by people who read the Eddas and thought the Aesir were talking to them. Sam thought the Aesir were probably like most of the pagan gods he had met – hungry for worship, but not at all safe to get near.
After the meal, while the games of cards and dice were starting up, Hrafn took Gail Green out to check the horses – to check Zap, who was hers but was on rented pasturing. The mare was not recovering well, even with the care Hrafn took with her. She had gone spavined; he thought it was the weakness of her joints that made the mare unfit for any work but growing fat for the knife. Gail disagreed, to the point of glaring at Hrafn when he suggested slaughtering the mare before the year turned. Gail was tender-hearted, and impractical, so he promised to care for the mare another full month. But he wrangled out the provision that if she did not improve, he could exchange ownership of Jarpstjarni for Zap, and do what he must. He would hate to lose the gelding, who was strong and young and with much better legs, but Hrafn had plans for Zap, with her lightning-bolt blaze and her valiant heart. He could not find a white stallion, but a mare marked with Thor's own fire would be good enough...
"What are you doing?" Sam said, as Hrafn tossed another clothespin Santa into the fire. Jenny had given that to him, before she'd left for the night. It wasn't right to destroy the kid's gift – she might not have any real idea of just what Hrafn believed, but she'd meant to make him happy with the silly toy she'd made.
"A gift for Thor," Hrafn said, smiled and tossed another little figurine to a fiery death. He seemed satisfied at that, since he stopped burning Santa in effigy.
Sam grimaced.
'Seriously, if Thor doesn't show up after all the prayers and blood Hrafn's directed at him, I'm going to have to track the Big Guy down myself and give him a whatfor,' Gabriel said. 'Maybe I'll trick him into wearing a dress again...'
Sam frowned. 'I remember that story. You disguised yourself as a maidservant then – didn't you wear a dress too?'
'I'll have you know I rocked that dress. Because I'm awesome.'
'And can shapeshift,' Sam pointed out.
'Well, that helped too, sure...'
Jake was a little surprised at the paper lanterns hanging from gym's walls, but really, what kind of decorations could they put up without electric lights? Not that they were celebrating anything, other than another month of survival – mid-January means they've made it four months since the bombs fell. At this point, any excuse to get out of their houses and socialize was welcomed by the town, because with no television, no radio, and half the books in the library ruined by fire, people were bored. Getting together to listen to music and dance was at least something different.
Bill was, for once, out of his uniform, over at the table holding punch – what were they using for punch, there wasn't a speck of fruit juice or kool-aid left in town – with his wife.
Jake didn't feel comfortable walking over. He really didn't know Kim at all, being on rather the wrong side of things when she'd arrived in Jericho all those years ago. What he did know, he'd gleaned from his parents, his brother, and Jimmy's occasional mention of the woman. And Bill's occasional cheerful burble about her, which were one of the few times the sharp-tongued deputy wasn't caustic and argumentative.
Kim Gravagna Koehler was half Vietnamese, half Italian-American, the result of a sailor meeting a shopgirl and falling instantly in love. She worked in the small state government office in Jericho, managing the paperwork of half a dozen branch offices for departments as different as agricultural extension and health and human services, all of which were flailing without orders now. Jake didn't even know if Kim was still getting paid – his dad had finally kludged something with Sparky Dumont, the town's banker, for a local scrip until the town's isolation ended, to pay the teachers, firefighters, garbage men, and sheriff's deputies, but the state government agents might have been left in the wind.
But she and Bill had their heads together, looking as cute as a pair of puppies. If Jake hadn't grown up with Bill and didn't know him, he might have thought they looked sweet. But he had grown up with him, and Bill was a weasel – short and cute at first glance, but as mean as a snake and sneaky about it.
Jake spent a good ten minutes watching the crowd filtering in, and glancing over at the Koehlers bemusedly. Eventually, Mimi came in, obviously chaperoning Bonnie and Sean, and the refugee girl Kat. Sam and Hrafn followed her, like a pair of mismatched guard dogs.
"So... polka..." Mimi said, after she got herself a drink.
"Yeah," Jake sighed. "Hey, do you know how to dance?"
"Dance, yes. Polka... not so much."
"It's not hard. It's just dancing."
"It's polka."
It was music that the band knew how to play, even without sheet music. And that didn't require amps or other stage equipment they had no electricity for. What more could you ask to bring the town together..?
Mimi didn't look impressed with that line of reasoning – polka not having been a fashionable dance in Washington DC. It hadn't been really popular in San Diego, either, though Freddy had dragged Jake to hear more than one conjunto band which had been pretty close, all things considered.
The first song started up, and suddenly Jake was bereft as Mimi strode off to supervise Sean and Bonnie.
"No dance partner?" Sam asked, suddenly looming beside Jake in the dim light. The tall man quirked a smile, and nodded out the whirling crowd.
"No, no dance partner," Jake said. He looked sideways at Sam, and asked, "You're not dancing?"
"Not unless someone asks," Sam said, and looked put upon. Given that Hrafn had wandered away toward the stage, Jake thought he understood. Dancing in public with your boyfriend in a small town like Jericho, that could be... fraught. If the two of them were cautious, Jake couldn't blame them. Jerichoans could be horrible gossips, and had a habit of closing ranks against you when you did something they thought was scandalous.
Being the former mayor's prodigal son was still probably easier than being a gay farmhand, even if Sam did have a boyfriend to rely on.
Sam coughed suddenly, which made Jake look up.
"Ugh, I don't need to see that," Jake griped.
Sam laughed. "Hey, your parents are still in love. It's kind of sweet."
Jake admitted it might be, if you weren't their son, and they weren't nuzzling each other through a slow dance.
Hrafn listened to the music, which was bouncy and cheerful and should have set his feet to flying, and wondered if he could get a look at the instruments later. The squeezebox especially was intriguing.
'You want to take it apart?' his angel asked.
'I want to know how it's made. It looks... complicated.'
'Huh. There's probably a book around somewhere. I don't know'
Hrafn shrugged, and stepped back to lean against the wall. The music was incredibly cheerful, and he wondered if he could risk trying to dance to it. Not their dancing, but his own. He didn't know the complicated back and forth steps, and wasn't sure he wanted to attempt them anyway, not without practice.
He opened his eyes again, and looked for Bonnie. She was still dancing with that disreputable boy. She could do so much better, though he supposed the boy was handsome enough. Not good enough for Bonnie, with her inheritance of the Richmond farm, but certainly handsome enough.
'Cute kids. They could make themselves happy in the long run.' Gabriel remarked.
'I suppose, if they grow together well. But will they? That sort of thing takes effort, and they are very young as these people reckon things...'
'I don't know. They don't have Enochian marks, if that's what you're asking,' Gabriel said.
'I wasn't, but I am glad to know that. Your kind does no favors to burn my kind with your runes.'
'It's Enochian matchmaking, Hrafn. It's what Cupids are for.'
Hrafn frowned at turned away the dancers and their cheerfulness. 'To make us ache for what we cannot have?'
'You bleed and you mourn, Hrafn, because you and Aud were meant to be together, and you were together. Why can't you just remember the good?'
'Why can't you just remember the good, eagle-chieftain. You mourn as well – you mourn your brothers, even as they kill you.'
'Bastard.'
'My parents were married, and you know it, Asvald. I am no-one's left-hand child.'
Gabriel didn't respond at that, and Hrafn stalked away from the dancing and the music and the cheer out into the cold night, to give himself time to cool his temper in the frozen air.
He looked up, into the brilliant night with Odin's Wain, and Thjazi's Eyes and all the familiar stars – and unfamiliar ones, shooting down across the skies.
'...no...' Gabriel trembled, feeling sickly-foul and grey in the back of his throat.
'What is it?'
'The stars... they're Falling. My brothers are falling'
"Mimi, have you seen Hrafn?" Sam asked, suddenly by her elbow. For a guy as tall as he was, as handsome as he was, Sam was startling unobtrusive when he wanted to be.
"He was," Mimi gestured towards the stage, "looking at the band, last I saw him."
"Damnit," Sam said, frowning. "How can one guy disappear so fast? This is a gym – it's not like it's even big."
"Maybe he wandered into the school," Mimi said. "Or... did you look outside? I know somebody spiked the punch. Maybe he went out to clear his head?"
Sam frowned at that, then frowned at the door they'd come in. His nose wrinkled, and he looked back at her, "Yeah, I'll look outside."
Mimi blinked as he rushed off, and then found Bonnie in the crowd. The teenager signed "What's with Sam?" at her.
Mimi frowned, and signed back, "Hrafn sick? I go check." At least, she was pretty sure that was what she'd signed. Her ASL was still shaky, and she might not have been clear in the uncertain lamplight. But Bonnie nodded and stayed put, so Mimi thought she had done okay.
Plowing through the gym doors, and out into the school's front yard, Mimi couldn't see anything for a moment, and then she caught sight of Sam, crouched down into front of a low cement wall. He was talking softly, almost nonsense words for all Mimi could make them out, and it took a moment for her to realize he was hunkered down in front of Hrafn, who was sitting on the wall and staring up at the sky.
"Hrafn, come on," Sam was saying, "it's all right. It's all right, Hrafn."
"They're falling, Sam. So many of them are falling," Hrafn muttered, his eyes fixed on the night sky, even though he was shiny-eyed with messy tears.
Mimi glanced up at the sky, at the huge wheeling stars above her, and the bright moon like a beacon, even it's dark half visible in the clear dark sky. She had never seen so many stars, and the sky behind them inky black – in DC, the night sky had had a bronze film on it, and the only constellation she could reliable see had been Orion. Here, Orion was huge, all the stars of his belt and shoulder, even his arms and legs, clearly visible without the pollution of steady streetlights. There were stars and constellations aplenty, and she didn't know more than a handful.
"Oh," Mimi said, as a light streaked across the night, "shooting stars. How pretty."
"Angels," Hrafn said in a strangled voice, "falling angels."
"You don't know that," Sam said, his hands on Hrafn's shoulders. "It's an asteroid shower. Probably."
"A war in Heaven," Hrafn muttered, and hugged himself as he tracked yet another shooting star across the sky.
"Hrafn," Sam said, and then glanced at Mimi.
She gave him a worried frown, and tried to soften it into a smile when he pursed his lips. She jerked her chin, back towards the school.
Sam followed her the few yards away, watching worried at Hrafn clutched at himself and shivered.
"Sam, is he having –" Mimi stopped herself, not sure of how to say it without sounding like a complete uncharitable ass, "– is he having an... attack?"
"He's not crazy, Mimi," Sam said.
Mimi sighed, and soothed, "But he's having a bad spell, right?" When Sam looked away, she continued. "Look, Sam. I know how it is. I had friends back in DC, wonderful people, as long as they had their meds. And I know you can't get whatever Hrafn was taking. I know that. And he'd okay, most of the time. But something set him off, didn't it?"
Sam glanced up at the sky, a worried look that spoke volumes.
"I'm sorry, this was a bad idea. I can find the kinds and we can go–"
"No!" Sam said, "No. I mean, Bonnie and Kat, and Sean–"
"Sam, since you need to get Hrafn out of here–"
"I will!" Sam flinched at how loud he'd gotten, and continued on quieter, "I will. I can take him home. We rode in, we can ride out. I can pony his horse off Socks, and you can stay with the kids."
Mimi looked at Sam, and felt sorry for putting him on the spot. "You think he'll be better if you take him home alone?"
Sam winced, but nodded.
"I feel like a heel not helping you–-"
"It'll be better if it's just me, Mimi," Sam said.
"Okay."
"And I don't want to ruin the kids' night out."
Mimi sighed, then nodded. "Okay, Sam. Do you need help getting him on his horse?"
Sam looked over to the athletic field, which had been turned into a horse corral weeks ago. "No. No, I'll be fine. Hrafn can ride in his sleep. It'll be good."
Mimi was dubious, but Sam was able to walk over to Hrafn and get the man moving with a few more words and arms slung around his shoulders as he continued to weep. They made it to the horses, Sam helped his lover mount, and then Mimi was watching them trot off into the night.
She waited until they were out of sight, beyond the weak torches around the school, before she went back inside to chaperone her three teenagers. Missing Stanley was hard, but she was suddenly glad that she had a man who was absent but healthy, instead of a man who was present yet not really.
Hrafn stopped weeping sometime on the ride home. Sam had taken the reins, and lead his horse – fortunately, Fifalla and Socks were both sensible mares, and would let him pony one off the other. If either of them had been riding other mounts it might not have worked – Kolfaxi, for one, would have pitched a fit, spooky as the gelding was.
They got to the farm, dismounted, and tended to the horses. It was a good thing that Hrafn could do it on autopilot, because even in the moonlight, Sam could see how much he wasn't there tonight.
Hrafn drifted back to the house after the horses were put up for the night, and up the stairs after checking the fireplace. Sam found him in their bedroom, desultorily kicking off his boots in the light of candle stub.
"Hey," Sam said. "You all right now?"
Hrafn looked up with red hollow eyes and shook his head.
"Can you tell me what happened?"
The other man took a long low breath, and then scrubbed his face. He looked ... embarrassed. "The stars were coming down."
"It could have been meteors...: Sam said.
Hrafn gave him a dubious and insulted look.
"Okay, yeah, I know it's unlikely, but I had to–"
"Gabriel felt them going out. Puff," Hrafn said, miming blowing out a candle, "and out. There is war in Heaven, Sam."
Sam sat down on the bed beside him, and laid his hand on Hrafn's shoulder. "I can't do anything about that. You can't do anything, to hurry it or help–"
"We kill no more brothers," Hrafn snapped, suddenly fierce and bristling.
"Yeah, sure, no more brothers. Not yours, and not mine," Sam said, thinking of Adam and Bobby, both lost in Sioux Falls, and Dean, who he'd lost the moment they'd committed to the idea of opening the Cage to shove Lucifer back in. It had just taken rising out of the Pit to for Sam for acknowledge that fact – and it didn't keep him from aching for Dean like he'd ache for a missing limb.
"Not his," Hrafn hissed. "My eagle-chieftain kills no more brothers, forever."
Sam nodded at Hrafn's fierceness. He didn't know what had happened back at the Elysium Fields Hotel after they'd run from Lucifer, but if Gabriel had actually tried to kill his brother – well, Sam hadn't ever wanted to kill Dean, not really, and the idea of being forced to pick up a weapon for people he didn't like much, just because it was the right thing to do, was still horrible even though they had succeed in following Gabriel's plan to stuff Lucifer back into Hell. If Gabriel was still twitchy about the whole Apocalypse, didn't he have the right?
Gabriel, for all his bile and trickery, hadn't wanted to kill his brother. He'd died before he'd done it, and Sam wasn't even sure that he'd actually made an attempt at killing the Devil, instead of trying to talk him down. But for all that Gabriel had done and not done, he hadn't wanted his family to be hurt again. And now more of them were falling from Heaven.
"Yeah, I understand. I'm sorry, Gabriel," Sam said, as he pulled the covers back and then over Hrafn, trapping the smaller man between Sam's heavy weight in the bed and Gabriel's insane bravado and doomed, hard-won bravery.
Hrafn's eyes flickered with bright gold for a moment, and then faded. He sighed, and snuggled up against Sam, warm and even pliable, under his borrowed winter clothes.
Sam wasn't even surprised by the dream, because where else do you find a being without a body of his own, except in a place where figments were as solid at truth, and truth dissolved like glass?
"Where is this?" Sam asked, when he found himself on a tall hill, looking out over endless fields with sparse trees, and a river with a waterfall, rumbling with mist.
"The House of Four Windows," Hrafn said, and Sam turned to look at the man beside him. He looked... alien, dressed in cloak and tunic, with boots tied up to his knees, and his hair not braided, but pinned back with carved antler combs.
"The House of Four Windows?" Sam asked.
"So that he could see his enemies approaching, and before, so that Sigyn could always have a way to flee on her own if life turned against them," Hrafn explained. He stroked the coils in his lap, that twisted and shivered and positively radiated grief.
Sam looked past Hrafn and... Gabriel, such as he was, and watched the people that populated this dream – or memory, Sam was pretty sure it was a memory, with people wandering by and taking no notice of either he or Hrafn, and certainly no notice of the pile of archangel curled in Hrafn's lap.
Women began appearing, working between the house and outbuildings, carrying basket of loaves, or spinning, or any manner of farm work that a women would be expected to carry out on their own. There were kids with them – little ones, and some older, teenager-ish, if gods aged like humans.
Sam watched the people, and felt Gabriel tense and flare at some them – bad memories, or bad memories. The twin boys with dark hair made him tense, and the dark-skinned young man made Gabriel sigh, and there was nothing but regret for the black-haired woman who was undeniably plain but who Gabriel tracked whenever she walked past, but Gabriel didn't respond to anyone else. Sam waited, leaning back against the stone wall with Hrafn, watching people wander through this dream
The world blinked white and howled, just for a moment.
Sam came to lying on a hard, hot surface. He rolled, and found himself on the hood of a car. Not just any car, but the Impala.
"Dean..." he gasped, and scrambled off, looking around for his brother. The car was parked by a lake, in the reeds, and there was a wooden dock out over the water. A man sat in a lawn chair, cast a fishing rod into the depths.
"Dean!" Sam said, and loped up onto the dock.
Dean turned to look at him as his feet made the boards rattle. Dean looked... good. Like himself, much better than he had looked in Detroit. He looked whole and entire, and a lot less stressed, out in the sun, fishing on a lake in a dream. Except that he was wearing –
"Dude, are you wearing fatigues?" Sam asked.
"Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniform," Dean replied without opening his eyes.
"What?" Sam barked, and started laughing. He couldn't help it. The idea of Dean as a Marine was just too funny – had Gabriel thrown him into a daydream instead of a memory?
Dean opened his eyes and glared sideways at Sam. "I'm going to ignore that, because you're a figment of my imagination."
"Oh, I am so not. You're a figment of mine."
"The real Sam is in Hell. You're just a dream," Dean snapped with a glare and went back to fishing, pointedly closing his eyes and leaning back in the lawn chair.
Sam blinked and scratched his head. "Uhm, no."
That made Dean open his eyes again, but he was glaring at Sam with about as much friendliness as a rattlesnake.
"I'm not in Hell. I'm in Kansas."
"Kansas..." Dean said flatly. "You are not in Kansas."
"Uhm, pretty sure I am. Jericho, Kansas. It's not bad... well, there's plenty to eat, if you can stomach corn meal every day." Sam looked thoughtful. "I worry about vitamin deficiencies, actually. We have no idea what we're doing, and we'll probably all have scurvy and pellagra by the time crops are growing again."
"God, you really sound like Sam."
Sam rolled his eyes. "I am Sam, Dean."
"This is nice. Didn't think El Deano had it in him." Sam turned to stare, because that hadn't been Hrafn, that had been Gabriel – the accent, the snark, the insult.
And it was still Gabriel, not shimmering, not coils, but human-shaped, with wavy hair, green jacket, and attitude. And a hand pressed over his belly, with black scorch marks on his shirt and an eldritch glow coming through his fingers.
"Damn," Dean said. "You're not something I wanted to see, even in a dream."
"Aw, I'm hurt, Dean, really I am."
Dean bristled, and Gabriel smirked, and they both inhaled like they were going to start laying into each other. Which was the moment that Hrafn came up behind Gabriel and shoved him sideways off the dock and into the water.
Dean grinned, and looked at Hrafn in shock. "Dude! That was awesome."
Hrafn went to the dock's edge and peered curiously into the water. He looked concerned for a moment, then he grinned and yelled, "You deserve it, angel!"
"Dude," Sam said, "That's just not right..."
"Yeah, it wasn't," Gabriel said, suddenly stepping around Sam, and knocking Hrafn off the dock in turn. Except that Hrafn didn't fall into the water, he turned into a raven and glided through the air, circling around to land on Sam's shoulder.
Gabriel, who was now dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and swim trunks, made a swipe at the bird, just as Hrafn cackled and leapt off Sam. Which resulted in Gabriel swiping Sam, knocking him off his feet, and falling over himself.
"Ow," Sam said, and grabbed at Gabriel's hands as the archangel tried to climb off him but just succeeded in kneeing Sam in a series of unfortunate places. "Quit it! Gabriel, stop struggling. You're kneed me in the balls, you ass!"
"Asvald, stop this. You're better than this," Hrafn said, coming up behind them, not a bird anymore. He pulled Gabriel off Sam, and sat, pulling the angel until they were sitting together against a pillar a few feet from Sam. Hrafn tilted his head in apology to Sam, and wrapped Gabriel in his feathered cloak. The angel resisted curling up, his eyes hot and angry before he choked off a sob and melted into his Vessel's embrace.
"What the fuck?" Dean muttered, even though he walked over and helped Sam sit up, before plopping himself down on one of the pillars. "I mean, just...what the fuck?"
"Dean, Hrafn Friththjófsson. Hrafn, this is my brother Dean," Sam introduced them, and then added, "Dean thinks we're figments of his imagination –"
"I'm not so sure about that now. I mean, why the fuck would I be imaging God's douche-iest angel?" Dean interrupted.
Hrafn's brows rose, and then he frowned at Dean.
Sam was tempted to shove Dean off the pier. Instead, he asked, "Have you heard from Cas?"
"No? He said he was going back to Heaven. Going to clean it up, be the new Sheriff in town."
"That idiot," Gabriel growled, where he was still cuddled in Hrafn's arms. "That ever-loving idiot. That was your influence, wasn't it? You stupid, stupid –"
"Asvald," Hrafn said quietly, and put his hand on the back of Gabriel's head.
The archangel looked at the man, and then ducked his head, burrowing back into Hrafn's embrace. He said softly, "My brothers are killing each other again, and this idiot is proud he helped."
"You cannot stop them, eagle-chieftain. Not now. You do not have wings to fly."
"I could use yours..."
Dean nudged Sam, and staged-whispered, "They're dicking each other, aren't they?"
Sam rolled his eyes, and said, "God, I hope none of us remembers this dream."
Which was when he awoke with a gasp. "Damnit," he muttered. "I remember." He turned to his side, but Hrafn was still asleep beside him. When Sam put a hand on his bedmate to check, he could feel the buzz of Hrafn's self, and the lower, slower, bone-shaking thrum that he was sure was Gabriel. They were both asleep. Or unconscious. Whatever. Sam wasn't, and he desperately wanted to be, so he lay back down. Pulling the blankets up over himself, he folded himself around Hrafn until he could feel the other man's slow breathing tickling his scalp.
Wrapped around his lover, and his lover's angel, he tried to sleep.
"What the hell are you doing?" Bill asked.
Hrafn Friththjófsson looked up from the marks he'd been smearing on the eagle statute in front of city hall. Bill had caught him at it as he came in for the early shift on the late February morning – Friththjófsson was almost certainly in town to deliver milk to the elementary school
"I'm putting up protection...?" he said, as if he didn't have red smears on his fingers.
"You're throwing paint on the statue!" Bill said. Then the smell registered, and he glared at the open mason jar in Friththjófsson's hand. It smelled coppery and sharp, like the blood that occasionally showed up at the general store home-canned during slaughtering – people bought it for the protein, to add to the rice from China if they had no other meat. "Is that blood?!"
"Blood works best."
"What the hell!" Bill yelled. "You can't just paint blood on public property!"
"I don't see why not..?"
"Would you get out of here!" Bill yelled. "I don't want to arrest you, because the paperwork would be too weird!"
Friththjófsson smirked, "You're just upset that I'm doing something you hadn't thought of."
Bill stared at the farmhand. "You are looney-toons."
Friththjófsson just smiled sweetly and screwed his jar of blood shut before sauntering off towards the school, where presumably his partner was actually delivering the day's milk from the Richmond farm.
Bill watched him go, and then turned to look at the mess he'd made of the eagle statue – there were angular lines finger-painted all around the base, all diamonds and triangles and arrows.
"Bind-runes," Bill murmured softly, and then looked confused. Where had that come from? But the shapes, for all their gore, he didn't try to rub out, nor did he fetch some hot water to scrub them off the stone base. They were mostly hidden by the shrubbery, and it would just take too much effort for something you couldn't really see.
And the idea of obliterating the marks, when Bill forced himself to think about doing it, just felt wrong.
So he went inside, and forgot about removing them. No one else even mentioned the marks all day, and by the time his shift was over, Bill had forgotten them entirely.
Sam had worked himself into exhaustion again – early spring was pretty busy on a farm, as it turned out, especially when there wasn't enough fuel to run all of the machines, and some of the work had to be done by hand. So he collapsed into bed and just curled up against Hrafn's side.
The dream started pretty innocently.
Hrafn was a clockwork raven, Sam could see, like the most exquisite toy imaginable. All brass and pulleys and wings – feathers! – like ten-foot razors.
This was certainly one of the weirder dreams Sam had had. Sitting in a tree – 'a great ash tree' supplied a helpful voice that sounded a lot like Gabriel – in a giant nest, with a bird that was a manifestation of his dream-image of his constant companion. Except that Sam didn't exactly like the tree, or the weather, or the fact that he too seemed to be turning into a bird.
His fingers were melting away and being replaced from somewhere. Still, he was pretty calm about that, until Hrafn in his dream turned, raven-like, and started to peck out his eyeballs.
That's when he woke up, with a horrible gasp and a deep desire to be the only one in bed. He almost shoved Hrafn off, but the other man was obviously commingled with Sam, in more ways than one.
The Norseman shifted, and threw a leg over Sam's. Because of the thin fabric of his pajamas, Sam could feel the warm heavy softness of Hrafn's dick, not yet aroused to use, but temping in the potential.
"Hey," Sam said.
Hrafn's eyes slit open, and he peered at Sam with narrowed eyes.
"Hi?"
Hrafn's mouth quirked into a smile. "Hello, Sam. Something you wanted?"
Sam frowned, then gave Hrafn a hopeful smile, which made the Norseman chuckle and pull Sam over with a hand buried in his hair for a kiss, and then another.
It wound up a very nice night.
Sam made Hrafn sit down the night after they'd plowed up the field for the spring sowing of the hardy vegetables – broccoli, cabbage and the like. He was exhausted, sitting cross-legged on the bed while Sam rummaged in the bedside drawers. Then the tall man sat down beside him and stretched out a hand as Hrafn watched.
He tugged at the stubby braided tail of Hrafn's hair, and pulled of the clips that kept it secure.
Hrafn sucked in a breath, all of a sudden very tense.
But Sam said nothing, just carefully unwound the braid that started at his nape, and moving his long hair around his head. Sam's hands were huge but so very careful, it was simple (one of the hardest things he'd done, but simple) to be unafraid.
There was a sideways tug on his head, a long smooth pull, and Hrafn realized that Sam was combing out his hair. It was a careful, considerate motion, full of Sam's huge fingers tipping his skull back into position when he let the comb sooth him into bad posture and slumping.
Hrafn was overwhelmed for a long moment, and he closed his eyes against the sheer pleasure of this kind of care. It had been so long since this kind of attention was paid to him – only him, not Gabriel, not the archangel under his skin.
"Hrafn, you okay?"
He opened his eyes, suddenly bereft, and looked over at Sam.
"Yes?"
"You kind of zoned out."
"I was enjoying it. No one has brushed my hair for me in a long time."
'I did.' Gabriel sputtered.
'You did it for yourself, eagle chieftain. That was not for me and mine.'
'Eh,' Gabriel said, in a tone that was increasingly familiar.
"I can comb your hair any time you want, Hrafn. It's ... nice," Sam said, and ran his fingers lightly over Hrafn's scalp and through his hair, longer now that it wasn't all bound up.
Hrafn sighed and moved to kiss Sam, the slow sweet promise of Sam's mouth pulling him in like a netted salmon.
'?!' Gabriel suddenly pulsed, alarmed.
'What is it?'
'Someone doesn't belong here,' Gabriel whispered, and his attention narrowed and shot like a bolt through Hrafn's head, dumping him from bed to floor as the angel tried to extend himself and crumpled.
"Hrafn!?" Sam yelped.
"There's someone outside," Hrafn said, and clutched his head, pressing his suddenly throbbing eyes. Gabriel was curled up under his tongue, making his voice thick and sloppy, as the angel writhed in pain. He'd tied them too much into the bind-runes, added to much of himself and his angel when he made the protections strong. "Go, Sam. Go and take your gun."
Mimi stared at the tabletop, and tried to keep from crying. Crying was no use, not now. She had to get it together, had to figure out what to say when the deputies got there. It should be simple enough, Sam waking the house when he heard a sound in the night, and her going with him and Hrafn to investigate. But that had resulted with them finding the tree thieves in the act – what had they been thinking, trying to cut down the trees so close to the house? – and then guns and shooting and blood.
"They were thinking that the orchard would make better firewood than the windbreak. The trees are harder wood, after all. They would burn better, longer," Hrafn said, as he dropped into a chair across the table from her.
"But we were here. They had to know that!"
Hrafn shrugged his shoulders. "They thought we wouldn't come out, perhaps? Or that the surety of freezing was more fearsome than the chance of being shot?"
Mimi choked again. "Damnit, no one should die for apple trees! Not when it's almost spring!"
"Why not? They were stealing the trees, depriving all this house of those trees' fruit in the coming year and the heat of the wood, too."
"Hrafn..."
"Thieves die, Mimi. We gave them the chance to run, we gave them the chance to give up. They chose to stay and fight."
Mimi rubbed her eyes. She didn't know that it had been choice, so much as blind panic at getting caught, that had caused someone among the tree-cutters to shoot at them. And miss.
Unfortunately for them, Sam wasn't so incompetent with a gun, nor did he hesitate when people took potshots at him. Nor did Hrafn.
Hrafn looked at Sam, tired and sprawled in the warm bed. Sam looked sleepy eyed, but his shoulders were tense. Hrafn knew what that meant, probably. Sam in was a very obvious creature in some ways, and he was feeling guilty about killing the thieves. Just because they were not trolls, Sam regretted killing them, even though they would have killed all the house for the trees – either directly with guns, or indirectly by stealing the wood and the promise it bore of fruit and warming fire..
'Hrafn, what are you doing?' Gabriel asked.
'What I want,' he told his eagle, as he turned and laid his mouth against the edge of Sam's, just an offer, not a demand, not an order. Of course, Sam was already interested, all ready at half a cock-stand, or Hrafn was no judge of men. It wasn't like he'd be unwelcome. Sam wanted a distraction.
"God, yes," Sam mumbled, and reached out for Hrafn's hands, tugging him back into the taller man's arms. Hrafn laughed and went willingly.
Sam seemed fascinated by his hair, now that it was undone and flowing down his back like a maiden's. Hrafn kept his nose from wrinkling at that thought, but something must have shown in his face, because Sam paused.
"I like your hair. Does that bother you?"
Hrafn shrugged. "I should cut it. It's too long for a man, at least here."
"Pfff. You can wear it however long you want. I'm not bothered," Sam proved that by curling a lock in his fingers and giving Hrafn a testing tug.
"All right." Hrafn let Sam drag him down into a better kiss, and yet a better one, until they were both warm and soft and satiated. Sam lay an arm on Hrafn's side, and with that as his blanket, went to sleep.
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 Three: the twigs and briars
Jake had been planning on spending Christmas on patrol, saving the day off for men and women with families to tend, but the Rangers took it upon themselves to reschedule him for a half-day off too. Which was why he was riding one of his mother's horses to the farm for Christmas dinner with his parents and Bonnie and Mimi, and Bonnie's boyfriend Sean and the farmhands.
Kat Brubaker's little sister was riding a borrowed pony beside him, snug and warm in a new coat that 'Sam and Hrafn gave me!' Jake had taken one look at that coat, and thought it looked suspiciously like someone had skinned and tanned a collie or two. Actually, considering Hrafn's utter pragmatism, the chance of that being the truth was disturbingly high. The man sometimes seemed dropped right off the moon for how little he cared for what people thought of him, and how oblivious he was to rules of behavior like: "don't make dogs into coats".
"Jake, honey, what is that?" Mom asked.
Dad urged his horse forward – still not the best of rider's, but good enough for what was effectively an easy trail ride from town to the farm. "What the hell?"
Jake looked at the electrical tower that sat just before the turnoff up Stanley's drive. Suspended from the trellised structure, hanging high enough that someone had to have climbed to reach them, were an eerie collection of bones and bottles, strung up like windchimes and weathervanes. There were lots of little skulls – rabbits and squirrel and odd translucent ones that he looked at in confusion before realizing they were duck and other birds – a few large ones, mostly cattle skulls, obvious and easily identifiable, or deer, but one that was weird, long and almost doglike with big sharp eyeteeth that Jake finally figured was a hog skull There were rib bones hanging in graceful arcs, and cut-off hooves positioned so they'd click against each other in the wind. And there were horse skulls in a wheel right in the middle – four of them, daubed with red and pointed outward.
"I don't have any idea," Jake said, "Let's keep going." Someone at the house knew what it was – someone at the house had to know what it was, because Bonnie and Mimi delivered milk to the grade school every day. No way could they miss that collection of weirdness being assembled.
"It's hunting magic," Jenny Brubaker said, as Jake hustled her past the grotesquerie. "Hrafn told me about it."
"What, honey?" his Mom asked.
"Hrafn told me – he said he was putting up a place for dead animals, so they wouldn't scare the live ones away," she frowned. "I didn't think it made a lot of sense, but Hrafn's a good hunter, so I guess he knows what he's doing."
Jake shared a glance and a grimace with his mother, and really hoped the kid had garbled Hrafn's explanation, because as good a farmhand and a hunter as the man was, it was looking more and more like he was also crazy as a loon. First his 'angel', now 'hunting magic' – Jake was going to have to ask Sam again what meds Hrafn used to take, in the hopes of scrounging up whatever anti-psychotics he needed. Of course, he was going to have to get past Sam's bad habit of ignoring reality in favor of his rosy-eyed glasses view of the world. And convincing Sam that his boyfriend was really out of touch enough to need help was going to be hard, because Hrafn did seem to be functional, at least with Sam's help.
"We hanged men from trees too," Hrafn said as he watched Mrs. Green trimming the tree with the kids. He seemed fascinated with the little Santa figures that Jenny was putting on the artificial fir that they'd dragged out of the attic, and less interested in the ball ornaments and tinsel..
'Does he mean–' Sam asked Gabriel.
'-sacrifice to Odin? Oh yeah. Though Hrafn's clan still held Tyr as their patron.'
"Don't mention that to the Greens," Sam told Hrafn.
Hrafn rolled his eyes, but patted Sam on the shoulder as he went into the kitchen with help Mimi with the venison roast. Sam sighed and smiled awkwardly when Mrs. Green looked up at him. He didn't think she approved of him or maybe it was him and Hrafn being together. Sleeping with a guy was presenting all new sorts of social roadblocks. No longer did people dismiss him as a drifter and a possible criminal; no, now some people acted like he was a threat to their kids. He was sleeping with an adult, and he had more than one person point him out as a person who shouldn't be around Bonnie or Kat. But not Sean, somehow, even though Sean was the boy and the entire town seemed to think he was gay, instead of bi (Sam reluctantly admitted 'bi' was the word – he enjoyed being with Hrafn, but he still liked women, with curves and dark hair and the soft squishiness of tits, even if he didn't pursue any of the single women his age in town).
And the gossip he'd overheard was just plain insulting – it would have been one thing if people had caught Hrafn as he carved and painted runes over ever bit of Jericho he could manage (Sam had nipped the idea of painting swastikas all over pretty fast – Thor's Hammer and the Helm of Awe were so much less recognizable and with much less bad history), but Hrafn had a knack for not doing it when people could catch him at it.
Dinner had gone well enough, early enough that the Greens would get back into town before it got so dark that no one could find their way, with Sam only occasionally wanting to stab himself with a fork when the conversation had gotten awkward between the Greens, or Sean and Bonnie had launched an ill-considered round of 'best holiday memories' which had ended with Jenny and Kat sniffling in the kitchen. At least Hrafn had the sense to edit his recollections to sound less insane, although Sam had 'heard' Gabriel helping to re-context them on the fly. He didn't like the way Mr. and Mrs. Green had given him a pitying look when Hrafn had mentioned his wife, or Mimi's narrowed eyes. At least Mimi had the grace to look a bit shame-faced when Hrafn had gone on to say that his family was dead. The Greens had just changed to looking at Sam like he was taking advantage of Hrafn's widowed state and presumed emotional vulnerability. As if – Hrafn was as tough as nails, and nearly as manipulative as Gabriel when he put the effort into it – Sam could believe he'd been a leader of men, once. Now, of course, he was an acolyte of a religion that was barely remembered and badly reconstructed by people who read the Eddas and thought the Aesir were talking to them. Sam thought the Aesir were probably like most of the pagan gods he had met – hungry for worship, but not at all safe to get near.
After the meal, while the games of cards and dice were starting up, Hrafn took Gail Green out to check the horses – to check Zap, who was hers but was on rented pasturing. The mare was not recovering well, even with the care Hrafn took with her. She had gone spavined; he thought it was the weakness of her joints that made the mare unfit for any work but growing fat for the knife. Gail disagreed, to the point of glaring at Hrafn when he suggested slaughtering the mare before the year turned. Gail was tender-hearted, and impractical, so he promised to care for the mare another full month. But he wrangled out the provision that if she did not improve, he could exchange ownership of Jarpstjarni for Zap, and do what he must. He would hate to lose the gelding, who was strong and young and with much better legs, but Hrafn had plans for Zap, with her lightning-bolt blaze and her valiant heart. He could not find a white stallion, but a mare marked with Thor's own fire would be good enough...
"What are you doing?" Sam said, as Hrafn tossed another clothespin Santa into the fire. Jenny had given that to him, before she'd left for the night. It wasn't right to destroy the kid's gift – she might not have any real idea of just what Hrafn believed, but she'd meant to make him happy with the silly toy she'd made.
"A gift for Thor," Hrafn said, smiled and tossed another little figurine to a fiery death. He seemed satisfied at that, since he stopped burning Santa in effigy.
Sam grimaced.
'Seriously, if Thor doesn't show up after all the prayers and blood Hrafn's directed at him, I'm going to have to track the Big Guy down myself and give him a whatfor,' Gabriel said. 'Maybe I'll trick him into wearing a dress again...'
Sam frowned. 'I remember that story. You disguised yourself as a maidservant then – didn't you wear a dress too?'
'I'll have you know I rocked that dress. Because I'm awesome.'
'And can shapeshift,' Sam pointed out.
'Well, that helped too, sure...'
Jake was a little surprised at the paper lanterns hanging from gym's walls, but really, what kind of decorations could they put up without electric lights? Not that they were celebrating anything, other than another month of survival – mid-January means they've made it four months since the bombs fell. At this point, any excuse to get out of their houses and socialize was welcomed by the town, because with no television, no radio, and half the books in the library ruined by fire, people were bored. Getting together to listen to music and dance was at least something different.
Bill was, for once, out of his uniform, over at the table holding punch – what were they using for punch, there wasn't a speck of fruit juice or kool-aid left in town – with his wife.
Jake didn't feel comfortable walking over. He really didn't know Kim at all, being on rather the wrong side of things when she'd arrived in Jericho all those years ago. What he did know, he'd gleaned from his parents, his brother, and Jimmy's occasional mention of the woman. And Bill's occasional cheerful burble about her, which were one of the few times the sharp-tongued deputy wasn't caustic and argumentative.
Kim Gravagna Koehler was half Vietnamese, half Italian-American, the result of a sailor meeting a shopgirl and falling instantly in love. She worked in the small state government office in Jericho, managing the paperwork of half a dozen branch offices for departments as different as agricultural extension and health and human services, all of which were flailing without orders now. Jake didn't even know if Kim was still getting paid – his dad had finally kludged something with Sparky Dumont, the town's banker, for a local scrip until the town's isolation ended, to pay the teachers, firefighters, garbage men, and sheriff's deputies, but the state government agents might have been left in the wind.
But she and Bill had their heads together, looking as cute as a pair of puppies. If Jake hadn't grown up with Bill and didn't know him, he might have thought they looked sweet. But he had grown up with him, and Bill was a weasel – short and cute at first glance, but as mean as a snake and sneaky about it.
Jake spent a good ten minutes watching the crowd filtering in, and glancing over at the Koehlers bemusedly. Eventually, Mimi came in, obviously chaperoning Bonnie and Sean, and the refugee girl Kat. Sam and Hrafn followed her, like a pair of mismatched guard dogs.
"So... polka..." Mimi said, after she got herself a drink.
"Yeah," Jake sighed. "Hey, do you know how to dance?"
"Dance, yes. Polka... not so much."
"It's not hard. It's just dancing."
"It's polka."
It was music that the band knew how to play, even without sheet music. And that didn't require amps or other stage equipment they had no electricity for. What more could you ask to bring the town together..?
Mimi didn't look impressed with that line of reasoning – polka not having been a fashionable dance in Washington DC. It hadn't been really popular in San Diego, either, though Freddy had dragged Jake to hear more than one conjunto band which had been pretty close, all things considered.
The first song started up, and suddenly Jake was bereft as Mimi strode off to supervise Sean and Bonnie.
"No dance partner?" Sam asked, suddenly looming beside Jake in the dim light. The tall man quirked a smile, and nodded out the whirling crowd.
"No, no dance partner," Jake said. He looked sideways at Sam, and asked, "You're not dancing?"
"Not unless someone asks," Sam said, and looked put upon. Given that Hrafn had wandered away toward the stage, Jake thought he understood. Dancing in public with your boyfriend in a small town like Jericho, that could be... fraught. If the two of them were cautious, Jake couldn't blame them. Jerichoans could be horrible gossips, and had a habit of closing ranks against you when you did something they thought was scandalous.
Being the former mayor's prodigal son was still probably easier than being a gay farmhand, even if Sam did have a boyfriend to rely on.
Sam coughed suddenly, which made Jake look up.
"Ugh, I don't need to see that," Jake griped.
Sam laughed. "Hey, your parents are still in love. It's kind of sweet."
Jake admitted it might be, if you weren't their son, and they weren't nuzzling each other through a slow dance.
Hrafn listened to the music, which was bouncy and cheerful and should have set his feet to flying, and wondered if he could get a look at the instruments later. The squeezebox especially was intriguing.
'You want to take it apart?' his angel asked.
'I want to know how it's made. It looks... complicated.'
'Huh. There's probably a book around somewhere. I don't know'
Hrafn shrugged, and stepped back to lean against the wall. The music was incredibly cheerful, and he wondered if he could risk trying to dance to it. Not their dancing, but his own. He didn't know the complicated back and forth steps, and wasn't sure he wanted to attempt them anyway, not without practice.
He opened his eyes again, and looked for Bonnie. She was still dancing with that disreputable boy. She could do so much better, though he supposed the boy was handsome enough. Not good enough for Bonnie, with her inheritance of the Richmond farm, but certainly handsome enough.
'Cute kids. They could make themselves happy in the long run.' Gabriel remarked.
'I suppose, if they grow together well. But will they? That sort of thing takes effort, and they are very young as these people reckon things...'
'I don't know. They don't have Enochian marks, if that's what you're asking,' Gabriel said.
'I wasn't, but I am glad to know that. Your kind does no favors to burn my kind with your runes.'
'It's Enochian matchmaking, Hrafn. It's what Cupids are for.'
Hrafn frowned at turned away the dancers and their cheerfulness. 'To make us ache for what we cannot have?'
'You bleed and you mourn, Hrafn, because you and Aud were meant to be together, and you were together. Why can't you just remember the good?'
'Why can't you just remember the good, eagle-chieftain. You mourn as well – you mourn your brothers, even as they kill you.'
'Bastard.'
'My parents were married, and you know it, Asvald. I am no-one's left-hand child.'
Gabriel didn't respond at that, and Hrafn stalked away from the dancing and the music and the cheer out into the cold night, to give himself time to cool his temper in the frozen air.
He looked up, into the brilliant night with Odin's Wain, and Thjazi's Eyes and all the familiar stars – and unfamiliar ones, shooting down across the skies.
'...no...' Gabriel trembled, feeling sickly-foul and grey in the back of his throat.
'What is it?'
'The stars... they're Falling. My brothers are falling'
"Mimi, have you seen Hrafn?" Sam asked, suddenly by her elbow. For a guy as tall as he was, as handsome as he was, Sam was startling unobtrusive when he wanted to be.
"He was," Mimi gestured towards the stage, "looking at the band, last I saw him."
"Damnit," Sam said, frowning. "How can one guy disappear so fast? This is a gym – it's not like it's even big."
"Maybe he wandered into the school," Mimi said. "Or... did you look outside? I know somebody spiked the punch. Maybe he went out to clear his head?"
Sam frowned at that, then frowned at the door they'd come in. His nose wrinkled, and he looked back at her, "Yeah, I'll look outside."
Mimi blinked as he rushed off, and then found Bonnie in the crowd. The teenager signed "What's with Sam?" at her.
Mimi frowned, and signed back, "Hrafn sick? I go check." At least, she was pretty sure that was what she'd signed. Her ASL was still shaky, and she might not have been clear in the uncertain lamplight. But Bonnie nodded and stayed put, so Mimi thought she had done okay.
Plowing through the gym doors, and out into the school's front yard, Mimi couldn't see anything for a moment, and then she caught sight of Sam, crouched down into front of a low cement wall. He was talking softly, almost nonsense words for all Mimi could make them out, and it took a moment for her to realize he was hunkered down in front of Hrafn, who was sitting on the wall and staring up at the sky.
"Hrafn, come on," Sam was saying, "it's all right. It's all right, Hrafn."
"They're falling, Sam. So many of them are falling," Hrafn muttered, his eyes fixed on the night sky, even though he was shiny-eyed with messy tears.
Mimi glanced up at the sky, at the huge wheeling stars above her, and the bright moon like a beacon, even it's dark half visible in the clear dark sky. She had never seen so many stars, and the sky behind them inky black – in DC, the night sky had had a bronze film on it, and the only constellation she could reliable see had been Orion. Here, Orion was huge, all the stars of his belt and shoulder, even his arms and legs, clearly visible without the pollution of steady streetlights. There were stars and constellations aplenty, and she didn't know more than a handful.
"Oh," Mimi said, as a light streaked across the night, "shooting stars. How pretty."
"Angels," Hrafn said in a strangled voice, "falling angels."
"You don't know that," Sam said, his hands on Hrafn's shoulders. "It's an asteroid shower. Probably."
"A war in Heaven," Hrafn muttered, and hugged himself as he tracked yet another shooting star across the sky.
"Hrafn," Sam said, and then glanced at Mimi.
She gave him a worried frown, and tried to soften it into a smile when he pursed his lips. She jerked her chin, back towards the school.
Sam followed her the few yards away, watching worried at Hrafn clutched at himself and shivered.
"Sam, is he having –" Mimi stopped herself, not sure of how to say it without sounding like a complete uncharitable ass, "– is he having an... attack?"
"He's not crazy, Mimi," Sam said.
Mimi sighed, and soothed, "But he's having a bad spell, right?" When Sam looked away, she continued. "Look, Sam. I know how it is. I had friends back in DC, wonderful people, as long as they had their meds. And I know you can't get whatever Hrafn was taking. I know that. And he'd okay, most of the time. But something set him off, didn't it?"
Sam glanced up at the sky, a worried look that spoke volumes.
"I'm sorry, this was a bad idea. I can find the kinds and we can go–"
"No!" Sam said, "No. I mean, Bonnie and Kat, and Sean–"
"Sam, since you need to get Hrafn out of here–"
"I will!" Sam flinched at how loud he'd gotten, and continued on quieter, "I will. I can take him home. We rode in, we can ride out. I can pony his horse off Socks, and you can stay with the kids."
Mimi looked at Sam, and felt sorry for putting him on the spot. "You think he'll be better if you take him home alone?"
Sam winced, but nodded.
"I feel like a heel not helping you–-"
"It'll be better if it's just me, Mimi," Sam said.
"Okay."
"And I don't want to ruin the kids' night out."
Mimi sighed, then nodded. "Okay, Sam. Do you need help getting him on his horse?"
Sam looked over to the athletic field, which had been turned into a horse corral weeks ago. "No. No, I'll be fine. Hrafn can ride in his sleep. It'll be good."
Mimi was dubious, but Sam was able to walk over to Hrafn and get the man moving with a few more words and arms slung around his shoulders as he continued to weep. They made it to the horses, Sam helped his lover mount, and then Mimi was watching them trot off into the night.
She waited until they were out of sight, beyond the weak torches around the school, before she went back inside to chaperone her three teenagers. Missing Stanley was hard, but she was suddenly glad that she had a man who was absent but healthy, instead of a man who was present yet not really.
Hrafn stopped weeping sometime on the ride home. Sam had taken the reins, and lead his horse – fortunately, Fifalla and Socks were both sensible mares, and would let him pony one off the other. If either of them had been riding other mounts it might not have worked – Kolfaxi, for one, would have pitched a fit, spooky as the gelding was.
They got to the farm, dismounted, and tended to the horses. It was a good thing that Hrafn could do it on autopilot, because even in the moonlight, Sam could see how much he wasn't there tonight.
Hrafn drifted back to the house after the horses were put up for the night, and up the stairs after checking the fireplace. Sam found him in their bedroom, desultorily kicking off his boots in the light of candle stub.
"Hey," Sam said. "You all right now?"
Hrafn looked up with red hollow eyes and shook his head.
"Can you tell me what happened?"
The other man took a long low breath, and then scrubbed his face. He looked ... embarrassed. "The stars were coming down."
"It could have been meteors...: Sam said.
Hrafn gave him a dubious and insulted look.
"Okay, yeah, I know it's unlikely, but I had to–"
"Gabriel felt them going out. Puff," Hrafn said, miming blowing out a candle, "and out. There is war in Heaven, Sam."
Sam sat down on the bed beside him, and laid his hand on Hrafn's shoulder. "I can't do anything about that. You can't do anything, to hurry it or help–"
"We kill no more brothers," Hrafn snapped, suddenly fierce and bristling.
"Yeah, sure, no more brothers. Not yours, and not mine," Sam said, thinking of Adam and Bobby, both lost in Sioux Falls, and Dean, who he'd lost the moment they'd committed to the idea of opening the Cage to shove Lucifer back in. It had just taken rising out of the Pit to for Sam for acknowledge that fact – and it didn't keep him from aching for Dean like he'd ache for a missing limb.
"Not his," Hrafn hissed. "My eagle-chieftain kills no more brothers, forever."
Sam nodded at Hrafn's fierceness. He didn't know what had happened back at the Elysium Fields Hotel after they'd run from Lucifer, but if Gabriel had actually tried to kill his brother – well, Sam hadn't ever wanted to kill Dean, not really, and the idea of being forced to pick up a weapon for people he didn't like much, just because it was the right thing to do, was still horrible even though they had succeed in following Gabriel's plan to stuff Lucifer back into Hell. If Gabriel was still twitchy about the whole Apocalypse, didn't he have the right?
Gabriel, for all his bile and trickery, hadn't wanted to kill his brother. He'd died before he'd done it, and Sam wasn't even sure that he'd actually made an attempt at killing the Devil, instead of trying to talk him down. But for all that Gabriel had done and not done, he hadn't wanted his family to be hurt again. And now more of them were falling from Heaven.
"Yeah, I understand. I'm sorry, Gabriel," Sam said, as he pulled the covers back and then over Hrafn, trapping the smaller man between Sam's heavy weight in the bed and Gabriel's insane bravado and doomed, hard-won bravery.
Hrafn's eyes flickered with bright gold for a moment, and then faded. He sighed, and snuggled up against Sam, warm and even pliable, under his borrowed winter clothes.
Sam wasn't even surprised by the dream, because where else do you find a being without a body of his own, except in a place where figments were as solid at truth, and truth dissolved like glass?
"Where is this?" Sam asked, when he found himself on a tall hill, looking out over endless fields with sparse trees, and a river with a waterfall, rumbling with mist.
"The House of Four Windows," Hrafn said, and Sam turned to look at the man beside him. He looked... alien, dressed in cloak and tunic, with boots tied up to his knees, and his hair not braided, but pinned back with carved antler combs.
"The House of Four Windows?" Sam asked.
"So that he could see his enemies approaching, and before, so that Sigyn could always have a way to flee on her own if life turned against them," Hrafn explained. He stroked the coils in his lap, that twisted and shivered and positively radiated grief.
Sam looked past Hrafn and... Gabriel, such as he was, and watched the people that populated this dream – or memory, Sam was pretty sure it was a memory, with people wandering by and taking no notice of either he or Hrafn, and certainly no notice of the pile of archangel curled in Hrafn's lap.
Women began appearing, working between the house and outbuildings, carrying basket of loaves, or spinning, or any manner of farm work that a women would be expected to carry out on their own. There were kids with them – little ones, and some older, teenager-ish, if gods aged like humans.
Sam watched the people, and felt Gabriel tense and flare at some them – bad memories, or bad memories. The twin boys with dark hair made him tense, and the dark-skinned young man made Gabriel sigh, and there was nothing but regret for the black-haired woman who was undeniably plain but who Gabriel tracked whenever she walked past, but Gabriel didn't respond to anyone else. Sam waited, leaning back against the stone wall with Hrafn, watching people wander through this dream
The world blinked white and howled, just for a moment.
Sam came to lying on a hard, hot surface. He rolled, and found himself on the hood of a car. Not just any car, but the Impala.
"Dean..." he gasped, and scrambled off, looking around for his brother. The car was parked by a lake, in the reeds, and there was a wooden dock out over the water. A man sat in a lawn chair, cast a fishing rod into the depths.
"Dean!" Sam said, and loped up onto the dock.
Dean turned to look at him as his feet made the boards rattle. Dean looked... good. Like himself, much better than he had looked in Detroit. He looked whole and entire, and a lot less stressed, out in the sun, fishing on a lake in a dream. Except that he was wearing –
"Dude, are you wearing fatigues?" Sam asked.
"Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniform," Dean replied without opening his eyes.
"What?" Sam barked, and started laughing. He couldn't help it. The idea of Dean as a Marine was just too funny – had Gabriel thrown him into a daydream instead of a memory?
Dean opened his eyes and glared sideways at Sam. "I'm going to ignore that, because you're a figment of my imagination."
"Oh, I am so not. You're a figment of mine."
"The real Sam is in Hell. You're just a dream," Dean snapped with a glare and went back to fishing, pointedly closing his eyes and leaning back in the lawn chair.
Sam blinked and scratched his head. "Uhm, no."
That made Dean open his eyes again, but he was glaring at Sam with about as much friendliness as a rattlesnake.
"I'm not in Hell. I'm in Kansas."
"Kansas..." Dean said flatly. "You are not in Kansas."
"Uhm, pretty sure I am. Jericho, Kansas. It's not bad... well, there's plenty to eat, if you can stomach corn meal every day." Sam looked thoughtful. "I worry about vitamin deficiencies, actually. We have no idea what we're doing, and we'll probably all have scurvy and pellagra by the time crops are growing again."
"God, you really sound like Sam."
Sam rolled his eyes. "I am Sam, Dean."
"This is nice. Didn't think El Deano had it in him." Sam turned to stare, because that hadn't been Hrafn, that had been Gabriel – the accent, the snark, the insult.
And it was still Gabriel, not shimmering, not coils, but human-shaped, with wavy hair, green jacket, and attitude. And a hand pressed over his belly, with black scorch marks on his shirt and an eldritch glow coming through his fingers.
"Damn," Dean said. "You're not something I wanted to see, even in a dream."
"Aw, I'm hurt, Dean, really I am."
Dean bristled, and Gabriel smirked, and they both inhaled like they were going to start laying into each other. Which was the moment that Hrafn came up behind Gabriel and shoved him sideways off the dock and into the water.
Dean grinned, and looked at Hrafn in shock. "Dude! That was awesome."
Hrafn went to the dock's edge and peered curiously into the water. He looked concerned for a moment, then he grinned and yelled, "You deserve it, angel!"
"Dude," Sam said, "That's just not right..."
"Yeah, it wasn't," Gabriel said, suddenly stepping around Sam, and knocking Hrafn off the dock in turn. Except that Hrafn didn't fall into the water, he turned into a raven and glided through the air, circling around to land on Sam's shoulder.
Gabriel, who was now dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and swim trunks, made a swipe at the bird, just as Hrafn cackled and leapt off Sam. Which resulted in Gabriel swiping Sam, knocking him off his feet, and falling over himself.
"Ow," Sam said, and grabbed at Gabriel's hands as the archangel tried to climb off him but just succeeded in kneeing Sam in a series of unfortunate places. "Quit it! Gabriel, stop struggling. You're kneed me in the balls, you ass!"
"Asvald, stop this. You're better than this," Hrafn said, coming up behind them, not a bird anymore. He pulled Gabriel off Sam, and sat, pulling the angel until they were sitting together against a pillar a few feet from Sam. Hrafn tilted his head in apology to Sam, and wrapped Gabriel in his feathered cloak. The angel resisted curling up, his eyes hot and angry before he choked off a sob and melted into his Vessel's embrace.
"What the fuck?" Dean muttered, even though he walked over and helped Sam sit up, before plopping himself down on one of the pillars. "I mean, just...what the fuck?"
"Dean, Hrafn Friththjófsson. Hrafn, this is my brother Dean," Sam introduced them, and then added, "Dean thinks we're figments of his imagination –"
"I'm not so sure about that now. I mean, why the fuck would I be imaging God's douche-iest angel?" Dean interrupted.
Hrafn's brows rose, and then he frowned at Dean.
Sam was tempted to shove Dean off the pier. Instead, he asked, "Have you heard from Cas?"
"No? He said he was going back to Heaven. Going to clean it up, be the new Sheriff in town."
"That idiot," Gabriel growled, where he was still cuddled in Hrafn's arms. "That ever-loving idiot. That was your influence, wasn't it? You stupid, stupid –"
"Asvald," Hrafn said quietly, and put his hand on the back of Gabriel's head.
The archangel looked at the man, and then ducked his head, burrowing back into Hrafn's embrace. He said softly, "My brothers are killing each other again, and this idiot is proud he helped."
"You cannot stop them, eagle-chieftain. Not now. You do not have wings to fly."
"I could use yours..."
Dean nudged Sam, and staged-whispered, "They're dicking each other, aren't they?"
Sam rolled his eyes, and said, "God, I hope none of us remembers this dream."
Which was when he awoke with a gasp. "Damnit," he muttered. "I remember." He turned to his side, but Hrafn was still asleep beside him. When Sam put a hand on his bedmate to check, he could feel the buzz of Hrafn's self, and the lower, slower, bone-shaking thrum that he was sure was Gabriel. They were both asleep. Or unconscious. Whatever. Sam wasn't, and he desperately wanted to be, so he lay back down. Pulling the blankets up over himself, he folded himself around Hrafn until he could feel the other man's slow breathing tickling his scalp.
Wrapped around his lover, and his lover's angel, he tried to sleep.
"What the hell are you doing?" Bill asked.
Hrafn Friththjófsson looked up from the marks he'd been smearing on the eagle statute in front of city hall. Bill had caught him at it as he came in for the early shift on the late February morning – Friththjófsson was almost certainly in town to deliver milk to the elementary school
"I'm putting up protection...?" he said, as if he didn't have red smears on his fingers.
"You're throwing paint on the statue!" Bill said. Then the smell registered, and he glared at the open mason jar in Friththjófsson's hand. It smelled coppery and sharp, like the blood that occasionally showed up at the general store home-canned during slaughtering – people bought it for the protein, to add to the rice from China if they had no other meat. "Is that blood?!"
"Blood works best."
"What the hell!" Bill yelled. "You can't just paint blood on public property!"
"I don't see why not..?"
"Would you get out of here!" Bill yelled. "I don't want to arrest you, because the paperwork would be too weird!"
Friththjófsson smirked, "You're just upset that I'm doing something you hadn't thought of."
Bill stared at the farmhand. "You are looney-toons."
Friththjófsson just smiled sweetly and screwed his jar of blood shut before sauntering off towards the school, where presumably his partner was actually delivering the day's milk from the Richmond farm.
Bill watched him go, and then turned to look at the mess he'd made of the eagle statue – there were angular lines finger-painted all around the base, all diamonds and triangles and arrows.
"Bind-runes," Bill murmured softly, and then looked confused. Where had that come from? But the shapes, for all their gore, he didn't try to rub out, nor did he fetch some hot water to scrub them off the stone base. They were mostly hidden by the shrubbery, and it would just take too much effort for something you couldn't really see.
And the idea of obliterating the marks, when Bill forced himself to think about doing it, just felt wrong.
So he went inside, and forgot about removing them. No one else even mentioned the marks all day, and by the time his shift was over, Bill had forgotten them entirely.
Sam had worked himself into exhaustion again – early spring was pretty busy on a farm, as it turned out, especially when there wasn't enough fuel to run all of the machines, and some of the work had to be done by hand. So he collapsed into bed and just curled up against Hrafn's side.
The dream started pretty innocently.
Hrafn was a clockwork raven, Sam could see, like the most exquisite toy imaginable. All brass and pulleys and wings – feathers! – like ten-foot razors.
This was certainly one of the weirder dreams Sam had had. Sitting in a tree – 'a great ash tree' supplied a helpful voice that sounded a lot like Gabriel – in a giant nest, with a bird that was a manifestation of his dream-image of his constant companion. Except that Sam didn't exactly like the tree, or the weather, or the fact that he too seemed to be turning into a bird.
His fingers were melting away and being replaced from somewhere. Still, he was pretty calm about that, until Hrafn in his dream turned, raven-like, and started to peck out his eyeballs.
That's when he woke up, with a horrible gasp and a deep desire to be the only one in bed. He almost shoved Hrafn off, but the other man was obviously commingled with Sam, in more ways than one.
The Norseman shifted, and threw a leg over Sam's. Because of the thin fabric of his pajamas, Sam could feel the warm heavy softness of Hrafn's dick, not yet aroused to use, but temping in the potential.
"Hey," Sam said.
Hrafn's eyes slit open, and he peered at Sam with narrowed eyes.
"Hi?"
Hrafn's mouth quirked into a smile. "Hello, Sam. Something you wanted?"
Sam frowned, then gave Hrafn a hopeful smile, which made the Norseman chuckle and pull Sam over with a hand buried in his hair for a kiss, and then another.
It wound up a very nice night.
Sam made Hrafn sit down the night after they'd plowed up the field for the spring sowing of the hardy vegetables – broccoli, cabbage and the like. He was exhausted, sitting cross-legged on the bed while Sam rummaged in the bedside drawers. Then the tall man sat down beside him and stretched out a hand as Hrafn watched.
He tugged at the stubby braided tail of Hrafn's hair, and pulled of the clips that kept it secure.
Hrafn sucked in a breath, all of a sudden very tense.
But Sam said nothing, just carefully unwound the braid that started at his nape, and moving his long hair around his head. Sam's hands were huge but so very careful, it was simple (one of the hardest things he'd done, but simple) to be unafraid.
There was a sideways tug on his head, a long smooth pull, and Hrafn realized that Sam was combing out his hair. It was a careful, considerate motion, full of Sam's huge fingers tipping his skull back into position when he let the comb sooth him into bad posture and slumping.
Hrafn was overwhelmed for a long moment, and he closed his eyes against the sheer pleasure of this kind of care. It had been so long since this kind of attention was paid to him – only him, not Gabriel, not the archangel under his skin.
"Hrafn, you okay?"
He opened his eyes, suddenly bereft, and looked over at Sam.
"Yes?"
"You kind of zoned out."
"I was enjoying it. No one has brushed my hair for me in a long time."
'I did.' Gabriel sputtered.
'You did it for yourself, eagle chieftain. That was not for me and mine.'
'Eh,' Gabriel said, in a tone that was increasingly familiar.
"I can comb your hair any time you want, Hrafn. It's ... nice," Sam said, and ran his fingers lightly over Hrafn's scalp and through his hair, longer now that it wasn't all bound up.
Hrafn sighed and moved to kiss Sam, the slow sweet promise of Sam's mouth pulling him in like a netted salmon.
'?!' Gabriel suddenly pulsed, alarmed.
'What is it?'
'Someone doesn't belong here,' Gabriel whispered, and his attention narrowed and shot like a bolt through Hrafn's head, dumping him from bed to floor as the angel tried to extend himself and crumpled.
"Hrafn!?" Sam yelped.
"There's someone outside," Hrafn said, and clutched his head, pressing his suddenly throbbing eyes. Gabriel was curled up under his tongue, making his voice thick and sloppy, as the angel writhed in pain. He'd tied them too much into the bind-runes, added to much of himself and his angel when he made the protections strong. "Go, Sam. Go and take your gun."
Mimi stared at the tabletop, and tried to keep from crying. Crying was no use, not now. She had to get it together, had to figure out what to say when the deputies got there. It should be simple enough, Sam waking the house when he heard a sound in the night, and her going with him and Hrafn to investigate. But that had resulted with them finding the tree thieves in the act – what had they been thinking, trying to cut down the trees so close to the house? – and then guns and shooting and blood.
"They were thinking that the orchard would make better firewood than the windbreak. The trees are harder wood, after all. They would burn better, longer," Hrafn said, as he dropped into a chair across the table from her.
"But we were here. They had to know that!"
Hrafn shrugged his shoulders. "They thought we wouldn't come out, perhaps? Or that the surety of freezing was more fearsome than the chance of being shot?"
Mimi choked again. "Damnit, no one should die for apple trees! Not when it's almost spring!"
"Why not? They were stealing the trees, depriving all this house of those trees' fruit in the coming year and the heat of the wood, too."
"Hrafn..."
"Thieves die, Mimi. We gave them the chance to run, we gave them the chance to give up. They chose to stay and fight."
Mimi rubbed her eyes. She didn't know that it had been choice, so much as blind panic at getting caught, that had caused someone among the tree-cutters to shoot at them. And miss.
Unfortunately for them, Sam wasn't so incompetent with a gun, nor did he hesitate when people took potshots at him. Nor did Hrafn.
Hrafn looked at Sam, tired and sprawled in the warm bed. Sam looked sleepy eyed, but his shoulders were tense. Hrafn knew what that meant, probably. Sam in was a very obvious creature in some ways, and he was feeling guilty about killing the thieves. Just because they were not trolls, Sam regretted killing them, even though they would have killed all the house for the trees – either directly with guns, or indirectly by stealing the wood and the promise it bore of fruit and warming fire..
'Hrafn, what are you doing?' Gabriel asked.
'What I want,' he told his eagle, as he turned and laid his mouth against the edge of Sam's, just an offer, not a demand, not an order. Of course, Sam was already interested, all ready at half a cock-stand, or Hrafn was no judge of men. It wasn't like he'd be unwelcome. Sam wanted a distraction.
"God, yes," Sam mumbled, and reached out for Hrafn's hands, tugging him back into the taller man's arms. Hrafn laughed and went willingly.
Sam seemed fascinated by his hair, now that it was undone and flowing down his back like a maiden's. Hrafn kept his nose from wrinkling at that thought, but something must have shown in his face, because Sam paused.
"I like your hair. Does that bother you?"
Hrafn shrugged. "I should cut it. It's too long for a man, at least here."
"Pfff. You can wear it however long you want. I'm not bothered," Sam proved that by curling a lock in his fingers and giving Hrafn a testing tug.
"All right." Hrafn let Sam drag him down into a better kiss, and yet a better one, until they were both warm and soft and satiated. Sam lay an arm on Hrafn's side, and with that as his blanket, went to sleep.
Previous / Next