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GBB: Birds of Passage: Part Four
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 4: blood in the service of the lord of hosts
February rolled around, and this time Sam was ready. He'd asked Hrafn highly specific, rather embarrassing questions, and had worked his way past the blank looks and the obvious stumbling blocks of cultural assumptions before he agreed. Mimi had taken the kids into town for the milk run – they were going to stay in town most of the day, as Sam had told them of their plans – well, at least Sam had told them about slaughtering the horse. That it was a pagan sacrifice, not so much, because they were nominally Christian. Sam didn't think he was, anymore, not after what he'd been through, and Hrafn never had been. And Gabriel's relationship to God was just... too complicated to get into, even with him.
Which was why Sam stood outside, the second of February, while Hrafn fed a few precious peppermint candies to Zap the horse.
The Norseman had threaded scarlet bands around his braid this time, and clubbed it back tighter than normal.
'He okay?' Sam pushed the thought out, hoping that Gabriel was awake enough to respond.
'Define "okay", Sam,' the archangel replied.
'I'm not going to hurt him, doing this?'
'This is his idea, Sam.'
Sam frowned, but Hrafn nodded to him, and Sam nodded back, taking the mare's halter and setting off. He led her around the big oak, round and round as Hrafn sang in a high, thin voice, in a language that no one had heard in over two millennia. Sam didn't understand a bit of it, but he knew it was an invocation and a plea to Thor and all the beneficent powers of the earth.
Even if it didn't work, it couldn't hurt to ask, Sam had decided. The angels certainly weren't doing shit for them; some of the pagan gods might have enough power and enough scruples to help. Even Gabriel had thought Thor might be open to pleas.
Which was why Sam led Zap, with her lightning bolt blaze, around the oak tree nine times. He stopped on the stone that Hrafn had placed as a marker, and hoped this wasn't going to blow up in his face.
Hrafn smiled at Sam as he lead Zap into place, and stretched out a hand to pet her velvet nose. "Good girl," he cooed to the mare, "Valiant girl. You'll carry our pleas to the Red Thor. Such a good girl."
Zap nickered and flicked her ears, and when Hrafn brought up his long knife in his other hand, Sam closed his eyes. Zap didn't make a sound of distress, a testament to Hrafn's skill and long experience with animal slaughter.
When Sam opened his eyes, Zap was down, and Hrafn was kneeling to collect the blood in a bucket and singing again softly. Sam sighed, and got the ropes from where he'd left them at the base of the tree. He tied the ropes around the mare's legs, attached them to the hoist they'd set up in the oak's branches the day before, and started pulling.
Hrafn joined him once the carcass started coming off the ground and it became real work to lift it into the air. They worked together companionably, Sam silent, Hrafn still singing his chant. He kept it up, even when the body was suspended and he cut it open, pulling out viscera and organs and dropping them in different buckets.
Sam took them to the side as Hrafn kept working. The heart he saved on a plate, and he dipped out a bowl of blood, but the other organs and the rest of the blood he took to the house, to be dealt with later.
Hrafn was mixing the blood into paint with his fingers by the time Sam got back. He smiled up as Sam and drew a line from Sam's forehead to his chin with the blood paint. He had already drawn streaks on his own face with the mix, and turned to draw on the oak tree.
'This is so fucking pagan,' Sam thought.
'Ya think?' came Gabriel's retort. 'Pagan, yep. Fucking, not yet.'
Sam winced. 'Let's not talk about that.'
'You're the one who agreed to this, Sam. I'm just along for the ride.'
'You'll tell me if I hur– if I do something wrong.'
Gabriel did something that felt like ice prickling Sam's skin, and said 'I'm not an asshole, Sam.'
'Could have fooled me.'
That made the archangel flare, just a bright sensation of heat that made Sam's skin tighten like the summer sun. 'I don't hurt Hrafn.'
'No, I know you don't,' Sam agreed.
Sam moved forward, and pushed the iron pot onto their little campfire. The water steamed in the cool air – it was surprisingly warm and pleasant for February, but still noticeably cold. Sam stirred the water once, twice, three times clockwise.
Turning to the heart on its platter, he cleaned it up, pulling off membrane and arteries before slicing the heavy organ into bits and dropping them into the pot. He cracked open the bottles of their homebrew, and poured the beer in, one bottle, two, three.
"Good," Hrafn said behind him, as Sam set the lid down.
Sam craned his head to see Hrafn retrieving the rough blanket they'd scrounged for this, and he swallowed hard.
He watched quietly as Hrafn spread the blanket on the ground, and began to take off his boots.
"Hey," Sam said, and crept over to the blanket, reaching out to wrap Hrafn in his arms. He nuzzled Hrafn's glossy bronze hair in its wrapped braid, and stroke a hand down his back.
Hrafn pulled back to look at him, and gave him a crooked smile. "All is well, Sam?"
"I'll be good," Sam said, half promise and half act of will. He bumped his forehead against Hrafn's and slid his hand up to Hrafn's neck, positioning him for a kiss.
Hrafn snorted, an amused, indulgent sound, and let Sam kiss him for several long moments, before he shifted back. His jacket – all that he needed in the surprisingly warm February air – came off, folded and tucked against his boots on the edge of the blanket.
Sam sighed, and pulled his own jacket off. He was not as thoroughly messy as Hrafn, but they'd need to wash everything later. He did retrieve the preciously traded-for and hoarded jar, though.
Hrafn's eyebrows shot up as Sam set it down on the blanket, and even Gabriel ventured a 'Really, Sam?'
"We're not repeating last time, Hrafn. I know what's going on, and I'm actually prepared."'
"All right," Hrafn nodded. "You still must–"
"'Treat you like a woman', yeah, you said. Multiple times. I don't fuck women up the ass without lube either," Sam said. He pulled Hrafn to him, and sighed in exasperation.
They made out for a while, with the horse heart simmering in its pot, and Hrafn almost in Sam's lap. But the Norseman pulled away eventually, turning to face the tree, his back to Sam as he started his quiet chanting again. Sam followed this time, and reached around, his hands over Hrafn's where the other man had been undoing his belt.
Hrafn glanced up at Sam, worry flickering into his eyes for a moment, before Sam kissed him again, awkward as he leaned over Hrafn's shoulder, and unbuckled the belt himself. It was easy to pull it through Hrafn's belt loops, and push the other man's battered jeans and shorts down.
Exposed, in the light of day, the scar and blue tattooing on Hrafn's butt were even weirder, prominent and alien, and Sam ran a finger over them, before he moved his hand to Hrafn's asshole, carefully stroking.
The stutter in Hrafn's chant was gratifying, and Sam spent a long moment just rubbing his finger over Hrafn's hole. He knew his partner liked that, liked gentle fingering and just the hint at penetration which they'd been playing with all winter.
"Can you spread for me?" Sam murmured, and took the opportunity to nip at Hrafn's ear. Obediently, Hrafn braced his legs apart, leaning forward on his hands as Sam reached for the jar of petroleum jelly he'd saved and traded and endured really crass jokes for.
Hrafn gasped and squeaked when Sam pushed one finger into him. Well, the jelly was cold and sticky, and even expecting it, it had to be a bit of a shock. Hrafn tried to recover from his lapse, to take up his chant again. His voice flowed in soft, alien syllables, even as Sam fingered him carefully, even as his skin flushed and his sweat broke, and his balls and cock grew heavy between his legs – where Sam had been forbidden to touch, dammit.
When Sam pulled out to grease up a second finger, Hrafn was panting his words, and as far as Sam could tell, he lost his place entirely when Sam actually put the second finger into him. Sam smiled at that, and leaned down to kiss the small of Hrafn's back, to slide his free hand under the other man's shirt and stroke the flexing muscles along his spine.
"Oh, Sam," Hrafn gasped.
"Now?" Sam asked. He wanted to, really, but he needed Hrafn to be ready this time, not gritting his teeth and enduring.
'Yes, dammit!' Gabriel snapped, making both Hrafn and Sam jerk in surprise and then fall over each other, giggling.
"Way to break a mood, Gabriel," Sam said after he recovered enough to sit up.
'Now!' Gabriel snapped.
Sam tugged Hrafn's braid off his shoulder, getting the other man's attention from where he was wiping his eyes in mirth.
"Yes," Hrafn nodded, and got back on his hands and knees.
Sam ran his hand over Hrafn's meaty buttocks, just admiring and possessive for a moment, and then unbuckled his own jeans. A quick shove down, and then scooping a handful of petroleum jelly for himself, and he was ready. His cock slid greasily over Hrafn's asshole, teasing, and Sam leaned down to Hrafn's ear.
"Okay, push now," he told the other man, and grabbed his own dick to push in. Hrafn opened around him like a bloom, just giving way with perfect acceptance. Sam groaned at that, the heat and the grip and the way Hrafn's hips twisted as Sam pushed in.
"You're so sweet," Sam panted.
'I bet you say that to all the girls,' Gabriel said.
"Shut up, Asvald," Hrafn growled, even as he pushed back against Sam. His grumbling at his angel devolved into throaty grunts as Sam pulled back and pushed forward again, long slow motions that worked on Sam's control and made Hrafn come pretty much unglued.
He focused on the slide, the steady effort of thrusting, one hand wrapping up around Hrafn's chest until Sam's fingers gripped Hrafn's collarbone and his thumb brushed the other man's throat. That was leverage, same as Sam's other hand splaying forward to wrap around Hrafn's thigh – leverage and connection and just a little bit of extra control in the way that Sam was able to pull Hrafn back onto his dick, was able to bring him back to lick and nip and bite.
Hrafn squirmed under him, not trying to get away, more to chase pleasure in the twist of their hips against each other. The guttural abandon of his groans told Sam that. Well, and Gabriel's strange, soft flaring, magical and simple as dust motes in a sunrise.
Sam lost, not control, but restraint, somewhere along the way, maybe when the alien heat of Gabriel's presence flared through Sam's skin, start with his cock and erupting outward like a slow-motion raindrop splashing down, alien and beautiful and very strange.
Sam lost his rhythm and yanked Hrafn backwards, hands clamping bruising tight at shoulder and thigh as he thumped his way to orgasm. His teeth were out, and he bit hard through cloth down into flesh and burning angel that lay under it.
Afterward, Sam was slumped over Hrafn in an uncoordinated fashion, and panted for breath.
"Are you finished then?" Hrafn asked, his voice shaky but carefully, scrupulously polite, even though Sam was draped over him like an old blanket. Or an orgasm-felled Winchester, to be honest.
"You didn't come," Sam said after he rolled off and flopped onto his back. He panted as he watched Hrafn attempt to kneel up and set himself to rights.
'Can't get anything by you, Winchester,' Gabriel said, while Hrafn just looked up a with rueful, cockeyed smile. He might be covered in sweat and had grease and Sam's come all over his ass, but his cock was calming from lack of activity, not satiation.
"Right," Sam said, "Can't have that."
Hrafn yelped in surprise as Sam grabbed him and pulled him down. Squawked in alarm as Sam threw one leg over him to pin him with weight – Hrafn had a lot of stringy muscle, but Sam was bigger and quite able to overpower him.
"Sam, the rite–!"
"You didn't come," Sam said, and tucked Hrafn full against him, positioning even as the other man wriggled. "I'd do this for a woman, if I didn't get her off with fucking, so don't grumble," Sam ordered, even as he slid his hand down over Hrafn's ass and flicked at his hole with two fingers.
Hrafn made a high impossible whine, and damn near levitated in Sam's arms, pushing up with his whole body, even though he dropped his head and whimpered a moment later.
"Feels good, right?" Sam asked. Not waiting for an answer, he pushed all around, firm touches that teased the ring of muscle as Hrafn made gibbering sounds in his ear. When Sam pressed again, Hrafn opened up around him, and Sam slid his fingers in, crooking them and pushing down against the prostrate.
Hrafn made an unintelligible noise and squirmed, not forward or back, but just against. Sam rotated his hand, twisting his fingers inside Hrafn as he swept his thumb forward, just behind the other man's balls.
'Clever monkey...' Gabriel purred.
"Yeah, opposable thumbs are good," Sam said.
"Brat," Hrafn hissed.
Sam looked at him, huddled outside and half-naked and yelping in Sam's arms in the most beautiful fashion. Sam kissed his mouth before leaning more weight on Hrafn, making him roll on his side as Sam fingered him, just the way he would have done Jess or Madison or even Ruby if he'd managed to leave any of them unsatisfied.
Hrafn didn't last long, shaking apart after a few moments of the circular back and forth of Sam's hand working his prostate up. He shivered and moaned and made breathy little groans, and came as Sam stroked him inside and out with fingers and thumb.
"So," Sam asked, after Hrafn had flopped down beside him, and they both sprawled for a moment, trying to catch their breath after pursuing that orgasm down. "Do you think that worked like you wanted to?"
Hrafn gave Sam an incredulous look, and burst out laughing. Sam smiled, and took the kiss Hrafn pressed to his mouth as a good sign.
"Come Sam, you've rested enough. We've work to do – meat to hang, meals to prepare. Maybe even fresh blood sausage for Bonnie and Mimi when they get home, hmmm?" Hrafn laughed again, and found his pants.
Sam sighed, and sat up, tucking himself back in and straightening in his jeans. They'd be filthy and tired by the end of the day, but there would be butchered meat hanging in the smoke house, and sausages waiting to dry, and if he knew Hrafn's industriousness, meat canned in jars, black soup on the stove, and a dish cobbled together from the tough animal-feed sorghum for their employers.
"Mmm?" Sam woke confused, dim half light from the halfway rousing him. The guy in the door was totally unfamiliar, and that made him bolt upright.
"Ah... Stanley, right?" he asked, guessing at the blond hair and round face. "Gimme a minute?"
Sam slipped out of bed, and dragged on his pants and two more shirts. Hrafn folded himself into the warm center of the blankets, and sank back to sleep.
"Sorry..." Sam said out in the hall. "Mimi didn't say anything about you getting back so soon. I'm Sam. Sam Winchester."
"Stanley Richmond. I... sorry about waking you up, but we need help. Mimi said you're good."
Sam nodded, and followed Stanley down to the first floor. Jake Green was in the living room, and so were a few other men, a Ranger patrol, Sam realized.
"Sam!" Jake said, "We need you to help Del."
Del was the Ranger clutching a field-bandaged arm and trying not to bleed on the floor.
"Kitchen table," Sam said, hauling Del up and towards the sturdy piece of furniture. "And more light."
A little bit of shoving, and Sam had an impromptu operating theater. Dr. Duwaly would give them hell in the morning, for pulling on Sam's hunter's training instead of actual formal medical education.
Mimi was up and boiling water, which hurried thing along. Sam retrieved his kit from his room, cleaned the wound with soap and water, and disinfected it with a swab of precious iodine, and then began to stitch Del up with dental floss.
"That'll hold until you can get to the medical center in the morning," Sam said as he finished.
"You'll have to stay here, Del." Jake told the wounded man. "We can send a cart in the morning."
"We'll bring him in," Mimi cut in. "He can ride with the milk delivery."
Jake nodded, and herded his Patrol out into the cold night.
Sam nodded, and went into the kitchen to boil his tools with the remaining hot water. Best to clean them now, and not waste the fuel. Mimi and Stanley took the wounded Del upstairs, tucking him into the bedroom with Sean, most probably. Hopefully, anyway. Sam wouldn't begrudge a wounded man space on his bed if it was necessary, but Hrafn and he barely fit the old bed, and another guy would make them into sardines.
"We're delivering milk daily now?" he heard Stanley ask as the returned farmer came back down the stairs.
"Some of it; we bring it to the school. Kids, you know?"
"No... what the hell, Mimi?"
"Every other farm but yours and the Radacks, the cows went dry."
"Oh... damnit."
"Bonnie hired Kat on because she had cows that were still giving milk. Sam and his partner came too."
"'Partner'?" Stanley asked, his tone half doubtful and half sarcastic.
"Partner," Mimi said firmly. "He wants to pretend he's not in a glass closet, let him, Stanley."
Sam decided that it was the perfect time to remind Mimi and Bonnie's brother that he existed.
"I've boiled my tools clean, and laid them out to dry, Mimi. If you don't mind, I'll put them away after breakfast. If I go back to bed, I might even get in another hour or two before dawn wakes me."
Mimi looked a little shamefaced, like she knew that Sam had heard it all. Stanley had the grace to look flustered and embarrassed.
Sam just nodded and went back up to bed. It was really too complicated to explain what Hrafn was, and people got it wrong even when he'd left out the total weirdness that was Gabriel, so he'd stopped bothering. If people wanted to think he and Hrafn were all 'Brokeback Mountain' for each other, that was fine by him now. He had bigger things to worry about than people thinking he was gay – it was half-true, he supposed, if you had an idiotic definition of 'bi', anyway.
Bill dreamed. The early spring was turning out to be even more anxious than winter, because with the first blooms popping up – crocuses and snowdrops and johnny-jump-ups and the few redbuds that survived the desperate need for firewood – were making people realize that they'd almost made through. Almost, being the word, since everything was growing again but nothing was really edible yet. The first crops were still weeks away, in late April if they were lucky, and would be things like rhubarb and radishes and pea shoots.
Dealing with people who just realized how close they were to survival and yet how easily it could slip from them, and how desperation made them act – crime had shot up again, after slowing in winter, just because it had been too cold for people to be out and getting into trouble during the worst of it – well, it was no wonder that Bill had another of his anxiety nightmares.
Bill hated these dreams. They were why he didn't watch war movies much anymore – and by war movies, he means any kind of war movies: WWII, Civil War, Revolutionary, fucking Star Wars, he couldn't watch any of them without risking weird freaky dreams. Sometimes it was simple, where he replayed watching the movie in his dream.
Sometimes, it was horrible and disjointed and must be like a combat flashback – Bill didn't know, because he didn't go into the army, he went into the sheriff's department when he finished high school. And in all the years he was a deputy, he never shot anyone before the September Attacks, barely ever even drew his gun, and that's even with the county being well along the transport routes for meth and weed and any number of other drugs.
But this was a horrible dream, because he could smell gunpowder and fire and he knew there was death out there in the hot night, wherever he was, and he knew it was a dream, but he was going to be trapped no matter how aware he was that it was a dream.
The trees were straight and tall and utterly foreign, and Bill wondered what the hell could have caused this nightmare, because it's not like there is even TV to show war movies anymore.
He looked down at his hands, and he was sure he's dreaming, because he didn't have three thumbs, and he didn't have feathers, and yet he did now, so definitely a dream. Of course, he was still wearing his duty uniform, which was just typical and a lot better than being naked, but he never had anything useful for his dream location – never a pickaxe when he wound up on a mountain, never a coat in a snowstorm, and never, ever his gun, even though it was part of a deputy's uniform.
Something exploded off to his left, hot and oily and bright, so Bill dashes right, into the woods. He got ten bounding steps and fell over – he was in a creek, plunging under water and thrashing.
It took a moment to get his feet under himself, and then he's waist deep in water, some creek that switches back on itself, and the light was weird, and the sky was gray and it was raining. Of course it was.
There was someone on the creek bank, behind the reeds, and Bill found himself wading closer, even though he knew it wasn't going to turn out well. This was one of his anxiety nightmares – they never turn out well.
He parted the reeds, and he saw one person crouched over another. He... the person on the ground, that was him, except not. He didn't look like that, but he knew it was him anyway, in loose black clothes and a military rifle strapped over his shoulder. There was blood all over his chest and his mouth, and his eyes were fixed and staring.
That was him, and he was dead. It was one of those dreams. He wanted to wake up. Really, really wanted to wake up. Even the dream about the prairie dogs with laser eyes and the fascist robots would be better, and that was always a terrible dream.
The other person, the one crouched over the dead him, he didn't even know what they are – man or woman, he didn't know. It wasn't important, though, because that person was cutting open his dead body with a silver machete. Bill watched in disgust as the figure opened his corpse, and reached into his chest.
His heart, his bleeding heart, was drawn out. It beat like the center of the world, and the figure brought it up. Bill gasped as the other bites into his heart, eating the bitter organ. It hurt, it hurt in his chest. They were eating his heart.
The person whirled, stared at Bill with eyes of amber, of flame. There was blood around their mouth, painting their sharp teeth as they took another bite, and another, devouring his heart.
"My heart. You're eating my heart," Bill heard himself whimper.
"I'm saving you," the figure said, in a voice of brass.
"It's my heart."
"And it's bitter. So bitter, my son," the figure responded. Its wings – it had wings, a cascade of them, white as snow and blue as the sky and black as sin – ruffled and mantled and resettled.
"Why? ... I need my heart."
"You will die without it."
"So you shouldn't eat it!"
The figure laughed, threw back its head and laughed, with its bloodstained mouth and brassy hair and the crown of light and thorns on its head.
"I do what must," the figure said. "I do it so you will live. You need your heart."
Bill looked down at himself, at the blood that was now soaking his shirt. "Stop eating my heart," he whined, and felt himself pitch forward, into the water, into death, into a new life.
It's one of those dreams, he knew. He'd have a terrible morning, when he woke up.
And he did – a terrible morning topped that ended in near disaster, but not for him.
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 4: blood in the service of the lord of hosts
February rolled around, and this time Sam was ready. He'd asked Hrafn highly specific, rather embarrassing questions, and had worked his way past the blank looks and the obvious stumbling blocks of cultural assumptions before he agreed. Mimi had taken the kids into town for the milk run – they were going to stay in town most of the day, as Sam had told them of their plans – well, at least Sam had told them about slaughtering the horse. That it was a pagan sacrifice, not so much, because they were nominally Christian. Sam didn't think he was, anymore, not after what he'd been through, and Hrafn never had been. And Gabriel's relationship to God was just... too complicated to get into, even with him.
Which was why Sam stood outside, the second of February, while Hrafn fed a few precious peppermint candies to Zap the horse.
The Norseman had threaded scarlet bands around his braid this time, and clubbed it back tighter than normal.
'He okay?' Sam pushed the thought out, hoping that Gabriel was awake enough to respond.
'Define "okay", Sam,' the archangel replied.
'I'm not going to hurt him, doing this?'
'This is his idea, Sam.'
Sam frowned, but Hrafn nodded to him, and Sam nodded back, taking the mare's halter and setting off. He led her around the big oak, round and round as Hrafn sang in a high, thin voice, in a language that no one had heard in over two millennia. Sam didn't understand a bit of it, but he knew it was an invocation and a plea to Thor and all the beneficent powers of the earth.
Even if it didn't work, it couldn't hurt to ask, Sam had decided. The angels certainly weren't doing shit for them; some of the pagan gods might have enough power and enough scruples to help. Even Gabriel had thought Thor might be open to pleas.
Which was why Sam led Zap, with her lightning bolt blaze, around the oak tree nine times. He stopped on the stone that Hrafn had placed as a marker, and hoped this wasn't going to blow up in his face.
Hrafn smiled at Sam as he lead Zap into place, and stretched out a hand to pet her velvet nose. "Good girl," he cooed to the mare, "Valiant girl. You'll carry our pleas to the Red Thor. Such a good girl."
Zap nickered and flicked her ears, and when Hrafn brought up his long knife in his other hand, Sam closed his eyes. Zap didn't make a sound of distress, a testament to Hrafn's skill and long experience with animal slaughter.
When Sam opened his eyes, Zap was down, and Hrafn was kneeling to collect the blood in a bucket and singing again softly. Sam sighed, and got the ropes from where he'd left them at the base of the tree. He tied the ropes around the mare's legs, attached them to the hoist they'd set up in the oak's branches the day before, and started pulling.
Hrafn joined him once the carcass started coming off the ground and it became real work to lift it into the air. They worked together companionably, Sam silent, Hrafn still singing his chant. He kept it up, even when the body was suspended and he cut it open, pulling out viscera and organs and dropping them in different buckets.
Sam took them to the side as Hrafn kept working. The heart he saved on a plate, and he dipped out a bowl of blood, but the other organs and the rest of the blood he took to the house, to be dealt with later.
Hrafn was mixing the blood into paint with his fingers by the time Sam got back. He smiled up as Sam and drew a line from Sam's forehead to his chin with the blood paint. He had already drawn streaks on his own face with the mix, and turned to draw on the oak tree.
'This is so fucking pagan,' Sam thought.
'Ya think?' came Gabriel's retort. 'Pagan, yep. Fucking, not yet.'
Sam winced. 'Let's not talk about that.'
'You're the one who agreed to this, Sam. I'm just along for the ride.'
'You'll tell me if I hur– if I do something wrong.'
Gabriel did something that felt like ice prickling Sam's skin, and said 'I'm not an asshole, Sam.'
'Could have fooled me.'
That made the archangel flare, just a bright sensation of heat that made Sam's skin tighten like the summer sun. 'I don't hurt Hrafn.'
'No, I know you don't,' Sam agreed.
Sam moved forward, and pushed the iron pot onto their little campfire. The water steamed in the cool air – it was surprisingly warm and pleasant for February, but still noticeably cold. Sam stirred the water once, twice, three times clockwise.
Turning to the heart on its platter, he cleaned it up, pulling off membrane and arteries before slicing the heavy organ into bits and dropping them into the pot. He cracked open the bottles of their homebrew, and poured the beer in, one bottle, two, three.
"Good," Hrafn said behind him, as Sam set the lid down.
Sam craned his head to see Hrafn retrieving the rough blanket they'd scrounged for this, and he swallowed hard.
He watched quietly as Hrafn spread the blanket on the ground, and began to take off his boots.
"Hey," Sam said, and crept over to the blanket, reaching out to wrap Hrafn in his arms. He nuzzled Hrafn's glossy bronze hair in its wrapped braid, and stroke a hand down his back.
Hrafn pulled back to look at him, and gave him a crooked smile. "All is well, Sam?"
"I'll be good," Sam said, half promise and half act of will. He bumped his forehead against Hrafn's and slid his hand up to Hrafn's neck, positioning him for a kiss.
Hrafn snorted, an amused, indulgent sound, and let Sam kiss him for several long moments, before he shifted back. His jacket – all that he needed in the surprisingly warm February air – came off, folded and tucked against his boots on the edge of the blanket.
Sam sighed, and pulled his own jacket off. He was not as thoroughly messy as Hrafn, but they'd need to wash everything later. He did retrieve the preciously traded-for and hoarded jar, though.
Hrafn's eyebrows shot up as Sam set it down on the blanket, and even Gabriel ventured a 'Really, Sam?'
"We're not repeating last time, Hrafn. I know what's going on, and I'm actually prepared."'
"All right," Hrafn nodded. "You still must–"
"'Treat you like a woman', yeah, you said. Multiple times. I don't fuck women up the ass without lube either," Sam said. He pulled Hrafn to him, and sighed in exasperation.
They made out for a while, with the horse heart simmering in its pot, and Hrafn almost in Sam's lap. But the Norseman pulled away eventually, turning to face the tree, his back to Sam as he started his quiet chanting again. Sam followed this time, and reached around, his hands over Hrafn's where the other man had been undoing his belt.
Hrafn glanced up at Sam, worry flickering into his eyes for a moment, before Sam kissed him again, awkward as he leaned over Hrafn's shoulder, and unbuckled the belt himself. It was easy to pull it through Hrafn's belt loops, and push the other man's battered jeans and shorts down.
Exposed, in the light of day, the scar and blue tattooing on Hrafn's butt were even weirder, prominent and alien, and Sam ran a finger over them, before he moved his hand to Hrafn's asshole, carefully stroking.
The stutter in Hrafn's chant was gratifying, and Sam spent a long moment just rubbing his finger over Hrafn's hole. He knew his partner liked that, liked gentle fingering and just the hint at penetration which they'd been playing with all winter.
"Can you spread for me?" Sam murmured, and took the opportunity to nip at Hrafn's ear. Obediently, Hrafn braced his legs apart, leaning forward on his hands as Sam reached for the jar of petroleum jelly he'd saved and traded and endured really crass jokes for.
Hrafn gasped and squeaked when Sam pushed one finger into him. Well, the jelly was cold and sticky, and even expecting it, it had to be a bit of a shock. Hrafn tried to recover from his lapse, to take up his chant again. His voice flowed in soft, alien syllables, even as Sam fingered him carefully, even as his skin flushed and his sweat broke, and his balls and cock grew heavy between his legs – where Sam had been forbidden to touch, dammit.
When Sam pulled out to grease up a second finger, Hrafn was panting his words, and as far as Sam could tell, he lost his place entirely when Sam actually put the second finger into him. Sam smiled at that, and leaned down to kiss the small of Hrafn's back, to slide his free hand under the other man's shirt and stroke the flexing muscles along his spine.
"Oh, Sam," Hrafn gasped.
"Now?" Sam asked. He wanted to, really, but he needed Hrafn to be ready this time, not gritting his teeth and enduring.
'Yes, dammit!' Gabriel snapped, making both Hrafn and Sam jerk in surprise and then fall over each other, giggling.
"Way to break a mood, Gabriel," Sam said after he recovered enough to sit up.
'Now!' Gabriel snapped.
Sam tugged Hrafn's braid off his shoulder, getting the other man's attention from where he was wiping his eyes in mirth.
"Yes," Hrafn nodded, and got back on his hands and knees.
Sam ran his hand over Hrafn's meaty buttocks, just admiring and possessive for a moment, and then unbuckled his own jeans. A quick shove down, and then scooping a handful of petroleum jelly for himself, and he was ready. His cock slid greasily over Hrafn's asshole, teasing, and Sam leaned down to Hrafn's ear.
"Okay, push now," he told the other man, and grabbed his own dick to push in. Hrafn opened around him like a bloom, just giving way with perfect acceptance. Sam groaned at that, the heat and the grip and the way Hrafn's hips twisted as Sam pushed in.
"You're so sweet," Sam panted.
'I bet you say that to all the girls,' Gabriel said.
"Shut up, Asvald," Hrafn growled, even as he pushed back against Sam. His grumbling at his angel devolved into throaty grunts as Sam pulled back and pushed forward again, long slow motions that worked on Sam's control and made Hrafn come pretty much unglued.
He focused on the slide, the steady effort of thrusting, one hand wrapping up around Hrafn's chest until Sam's fingers gripped Hrafn's collarbone and his thumb brushed the other man's throat. That was leverage, same as Sam's other hand splaying forward to wrap around Hrafn's thigh – leverage and connection and just a little bit of extra control in the way that Sam was able to pull Hrafn back onto his dick, was able to bring him back to lick and nip and bite.
Hrafn squirmed under him, not trying to get away, more to chase pleasure in the twist of their hips against each other. The guttural abandon of his groans told Sam that. Well, and Gabriel's strange, soft flaring, magical and simple as dust motes in a sunrise.
Sam lost, not control, but restraint, somewhere along the way, maybe when the alien heat of Gabriel's presence flared through Sam's skin, start with his cock and erupting outward like a slow-motion raindrop splashing down, alien and beautiful and very strange.
Sam lost his rhythm and yanked Hrafn backwards, hands clamping bruising tight at shoulder and thigh as he thumped his way to orgasm. His teeth were out, and he bit hard through cloth down into flesh and burning angel that lay under it.
Afterward, Sam was slumped over Hrafn in an uncoordinated fashion, and panted for breath.
"Are you finished then?" Hrafn asked, his voice shaky but carefully, scrupulously polite, even though Sam was draped over him like an old blanket. Or an orgasm-felled Winchester, to be honest.
"You didn't come," Sam said after he rolled off and flopped onto his back. He panted as he watched Hrafn attempt to kneel up and set himself to rights.
'Can't get anything by you, Winchester,' Gabriel said, while Hrafn just looked up a with rueful, cockeyed smile. He might be covered in sweat and had grease and Sam's come all over his ass, but his cock was calming from lack of activity, not satiation.
"Right," Sam said, "Can't have that."
Hrafn yelped in surprise as Sam grabbed him and pulled him down. Squawked in alarm as Sam threw one leg over him to pin him with weight – Hrafn had a lot of stringy muscle, but Sam was bigger and quite able to overpower him.
"Sam, the rite–!"
"You didn't come," Sam said, and tucked Hrafn full against him, positioning even as the other man wriggled. "I'd do this for a woman, if I didn't get her off with fucking, so don't grumble," Sam ordered, even as he slid his hand down over Hrafn's ass and flicked at his hole with two fingers.
Hrafn made a high impossible whine, and damn near levitated in Sam's arms, pushing up with his whole body, even though he dropped his head and whimpered a moment later.
"Feels good, right?" Sam asked. Not waiting for an answer, he pushed all around, firm touches that teased the ring of muscle as Hrafn made gibbering sounds in his ear. When Sam pressed again, Hrafn opened up around him, and Sam slid his fingers in, crooking them and pushing down against the prostrate.
Hrafn made an unintelligible noise and squirmed, not forward or back, but just against. Sam rotated his hand, twisting his fingers inside Hrafn as he swept his thumb forward, just behind the other man's balls.
'Clever monkey...' Gabriel purred.
"Yeah, opposable thumbs are good," Sam said.
"Brat," Hrafn hissed.
Sam looked at him, huddled outside and half-naked and yelping in Sam's arms in the most beautiful fashion. Sam kissed his mouth before leaning more weight on Hrafn, making him roll on his side as Sam fingered him, just the way he would have done Jess or Madison or even Ruby if he'd managed to leave any of them unsatisfied.
Hrafn didn't last long, shaking apart after a few moments of the circular back and forth of Sam's hand working his prostate up. He shivered and moaned and made breathy little groans, and came as Sam stroked him inside and out with fingers and thumb.
"So," Sam asked, after Hrafn had flopped down beside him, and they both sprawled for a moment, trying to catch their breath after pursuing that orgasm down. "Do you think that worked like you wanted to?"
Hrafn gave Sam an incredulous look, and burst out laughing. Sam smiled, and took the kiss Hrafn pressed to his mouth as a good sign.
"Come Sam, you've rested enough. We've work to do – meat to hang, meals to prepare. Maybe even fresh blood sausage for Bonnie and Mimi when they get home, hmmm?" Hrafn laughed again, and found his pants.
Sam sighed, and sat up, tucking himself back in and straightening in his jeans. They'd be filthy and tired by the end of the day, but there would be butchered meat hanging in the smoke house, and sausages waiting to dry, and if he knew Hrafn's industriousness, meat canned in jars, black soup on the stove, and a dish cobbled together from the tough animal-feed sorghum for their employers.
"Mmm?" Sam woke confused, dim half light from the halfway rousing him. The guy in the door was totally unfamiliar, and that made him bolt upright.
"Ah... Stanley, right?" he asked, guessing at the blond hair and round face. "Gimme a minute?"
Sam slipped out of bed, and dragged on his pants and two more shirts. Hrafn folded himself into the warm center of the blankets, and sank back to sleep.
"Sorry..." Sam said out in the hall. "Mimi didn't say anything about you getting back so soon. I'm Sam. Sam Winchester."
"Stanley Richmond. I... sorry about waking you up, but we need help. Mimi said you're good."
Sam nodded, and followed Stanley down to the first floor. Jake Green was in the living room, and so were a few other men, a Ranger patrol, Sam realized.
"Sam!" Jake said, "We need you to help Del."
Del was the Ranger clutching a field-bandaged arm and trying not to bleed on the floor.
"Kitchen table," Sam said, hauling Del up and towards the sturdy piece of furniture. "And more light."
A little bit of shoving, and Sam had an impromptu operating theater. Dr. Duwaly would give them hell in the morning, for pulling on Sam's hunter's training instead of actual formal medical education.
Mimi was up and boiling water, which hurried thing along. Sam retrieved his kit from his room, cleaned the wound with soap and water, and disinfected it with a swab of precious iodine, and then began to stitch Del up with dental floss.
"That'll hold until you can get to the medical center in the morning," Sam said as he finished.
"You'll have to stay here, Del." Jake told the wounded man. "We can send a cart in the morning."
"We'll bring him in," Mimi cut in. "He can ride with the milk delivery."
Jake nodded, and herded his Patrol out into the cold night.
Sam nodded, and went into the kitchen to boil his tools with the remaining hot water. Best to clean them now, and not waste the fuel. Mimi and Stanley took the wounded Del upstairs, tucking him into the bedroom with Sean, most probably. Hopefully, anyway. Sam wouldn't begrudge a wounded man space on his bed if it was necessary, but Hrafn and he barely fit the old bed, and another guy would make them into sardines.
"We're delivering milk daily now?" he heard Stanley ask as the returned farmer came back down the stairs.
"Some of it; we bring it to the school. Kids, you know?"
"No... what the hell, Mimi?"
"Every other farm but yours and the Radacks, the cows went dry."
"Oh... damnit."
"Bonnie hired Kat on because she had cows that were still giving milk. Sam and his partner came too."
"'Partner'?" Stanley asked, his tone half doubtful and half sarcastic.
"Partner," Mimi said firmly. "He wants to pretend he's not in a glass closet, let him, Stanley."
Sam decided that it was the perfect time to remind Mimi and Bonnie's brother that he existed.
"I've boiled my tools clean, and laid them out to dry, Mimi. If you don't mind, I'll put them away after breakfast. If I go back to bed, I might even get in another hour or two before dawn wakes me."
Mimi looked a little shamefaced, like she knew that Sam had heard it all. Stanley had the grace to look flustered and embarrassed.
Sam just nodded and went back up to bed. It was really too complicated to explain what Hrafn was, and people got it wrong even when he'd left out the total weirdness that was Gabriel, so he'd stopped bothering. If people wanted to think he and Hrafn were all 'Brokeback Mountain' for each other, that was fine by him now. He had bigger things to worry about than people thinking he was gay – it was half-true, he supposed, if you had an idiotic definition of 'bi', anyway.
Bill dreamed. The early spring was turning out to be even more anxious than winter, because with the first blooms popping up – crocuses and snowdrops and johnny-jump-ups and the few redbuds that survived the desperate need for firewood – were making people realize that they'd almost made through. Almost, being the word, since everything was growing again but nothing was really edible yet. The first crops were still weeks away, in late April if they were lucky, and would be things like rhubarb and radishes and pea shoots.
Dealing with people who just realized how close they were to survival and yet how easily it could slip from them, and how desperation made them act – crime had shot up again, after slowing in winter, just because it had been too cold for people to be out and getting into trouble during the worst of it – well, it was no wonder that Bill had another of his anxiety nightmares.
Bill hated these dreams. They were why he didn't watch war movies much anymore – and by war movies, he means any kind of war movies: WWII, Civil War, Revolutionary, fucking Star Wars, he couldn't watch any of them without risking weird freaky dreams. Sometimes it was simple, where he replayed watching the movie in his dream.
Sometimes, it was horrible and disjointed and must be like a combat flashback – Bill didn't know, because he didn't go into the army, he went into the sheriff's department when he finished high school. And in all the years he was a deputy, he never shot anyone before the September Attacks, barely ever even drew his gun, and that's even with the county being well along the transport routes for meth and weed and any number of other drugs.
But this was a horrible dream, because he could smell gunpowder and fire and he knew there was death out there in the hot night, wherever he was, and he knew it was a dream, but he was going to be trapped no matter how aware he was that it was a dream.
The trees were straight and tall and utterly foreign, and Bill wondered what the hell could have caused this nightmare, because it's not like there is even TV to show war movies anymore.
He looked down at his hands, and he was sure he's dreaming, because he didn't have three thumbs, and he didn't have feathers, and yet he did now, so definitely a dream. Of course, he was still wearing his duty uniform, which was just typical and a lot better than being naked, but he never had anything useful for his dream location – never a pickaxe when he wound up on a mountain, never a coat in a snowstorm, and never, ever his gun, even though it was part of a deputy's uniform.
Something exploded off to his left, hot and oily and bright, so Bill dashes right, into the woods. He got ten bounding steps and fell over – he was in a creek, plunging under water and thrashing.
It took a moment to get his feet under himself, and then he's waist deep in water, some creek that switches back on itself, and the light was weird, and the sky was gray and it was raining. Of course it was.
There was someone on the creek bank, behind the reeds, and Bill found himself wading closer, even though he knew it wasn't going to turn out well. This was one of his anxiety nightmares – they never turn out well.
He parted the reeds, and he saw one person crouched over another. He... the person on the ground, that was him, except not. He didn't look like that, but he knew it was him anyway, in loose black clothes and a military rifle strapped over his shoulder. There was blood all over his chest and his mouth, and his eyes were fixed and staring.
That was him, and he was dead. It was one of those dreams. He wanted to wake up. Really, really wanted to wake up. Even the dream about the prairie dogs with laser eyes and the fascist robots would be better, and that was always a terrible dream.
The other person, the one crouched over the dead him, he didn't even know what they are – man or woman, he didn't know. It wasn't important, though, because that person was cutting open his dead body with a silver machete. Bill watched in disgust as the figure opened his corpse, and reached into his chest.
His heart, his bleeding heart, was drawn out. It beat like the center of the world, and the figure brought it up. Bill gasped as the other bites into his heart, eating the bitter organ. It hurt, it hurt in his chest. They were eating his heart.
The person whirled, stared at Bill with eyes of amber, of flame. There was blood around their mouth, painting their sharp teeth as they took another bite, and another, devouring his heart.
"My heart. You're eating my heart," Bill heard himself whimper.
"I'm saving you," the figure said, in a voice of brass.
"It's my heart."
"And it's bitter. So bitter, my son," the figure responded. Its wings – it had wings, a cascade of them, white as snow and blue as the sky and black as sin – ruffled and mantled and resettled.
"Why? ... I need my heart."
"You will die without it."
"So you shouldn't eat it!"
The figure laughed, threw back its head and laughed, with its bloodstained mouth and brassy hair and the crown of light and thorns on its head.
"I do what must," the figure said. "I do it so you will live. You need your heart."
Bill looked down at himself, at the blood that was now soaking his shirt. "Stop eating my heart," he whined, and felt himself pitch forward, into the water, into death, into a new life.
It's one of those dreams, he knew. He'd have a terrible morning, when he woke up.
And he did – a terrible morning topped that ended in near disaster, but not for him.
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