GBB: Birds of Passage: Part Five

[neotoma]

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 Five: only the rain knows

It was Hrafn's horse Skalm coming back that threw the Richmond farm into terror – the mare was torn up over her spotted rump, and her saddle tacky. It didn't help that the sun was low, setting in the early winter evening.

Jake took it all in, Stanley's rapid babble, Bonnie's hands quick and clear but her voice sloppy with nerves, and Sam Winchester worried, almost panicked, frowning. Not that Jake could blame him – he wouldn't be any better off if it was Emily (or Heather) lost out them.

Jake sent a bicycle kid back to town, fast as possible, to tell the sheriff's office, and then turned to Jimmy. "How do we search for missing people in the dark?"

Jimmy frowned. "We can't, not without lights," the big deputy said, and looked worried. "We need to start now – the sun will be down in less than two hours."

Jake sighed, and broke the patrol up – two riders in opposite directions, to tell the abutting patrols they were looking for the missing Kat and Hrafn, and then Jimmy, Stanley, and Bonnie to go east along the road, and Sam and he himself to go west, searching.

The fading light and the cold wind made him think of his disastrous hunting trip with Stanley and Mimi, back before Thanksgiving. But Hrafn and Kat were only visiting between farms, checking on some of the stock Kat had rented out to the Vreeland farm. They should have been inside the patrol circle the entire time.

But they tracked back and tracked back, and it got darker and more dismal. The Vreeland farm was far out from town like the Richmond one, and the windbreaks made it hard to search, distorting shapes along the roads into crazy quilts.

Finally they spotted something. Or more precisely, she spotted them...

"...sam?"

It was sixteen-year old Kat, fetched up in a ditch. She was all over with blood and scratches, and she looked at them blearily.

"KAT!" Sam bellowed, and scrambled down into the ditch, heedless of the bad slope.

"I'm sorry, Sam. I'm sorry," Kat was babbling and clutching at Sam's coat with nerveless fingers.

"Kat, are you hurt? Where's Hrafn? What did this to you?"

"It was a monster! It killed Snookums, and started to eat him!"

"Snookums?" Jake asked. He was readying a flare gun – yeah, it was precious resource, but finding one of the two alive, it was news, and hopefully setting off a flare would get Kat back to town – and the med center, which she obviously needed – much sooner.

Sam winced, "Her horse. Kat, where's Hrafn?"

"I tried to get him up, but he didn't go. It killed Snooks..."

Sam frowned, and he jerked his chin up, indicating that Jake should turn his flashlight on. "Shit, Kat," Sam said after he checked her eyes with the poor light of Jake's flashlight, "I think you've got a concussion."

"I'm sorry..."

"That's okay. Where did you leave Hrafn? Do you remember?"

"Under the monster. I couldn't move it. Oh," she said in faint surprise. "I think it was a tiger, Sam. Maybe..."

Jake was about to suggest that they try to get Kat up and moving back toward town and the med center, when he heard the rattle of Stanley and company riding up – with, wonder of wonders, Del back on his bicycle, and a smattering of off-duty Rangers, including Bill on that fast gray pony he was leasing... from Sam and Hrafn, come to think of it.

"We found Kat. Del, go back to town, go straight to the med center. Tell them we're bringing in Kat, and Sam thinks she's concussed."

Jake watched Del speed off, and then delegated two of the newly arrived Rangers to escort Kat back. She was wobbly as hell – the concussion, probably – and banged up badly, but nothing broken, and nothing bleeding anymore. They packed her up riding behind one of her escorts, and hoped for the best.

Fanning out, Jake had them search along the road, and through the windbreak trees into the fields. Whatever Kat had seen out there, whatever it was that had attacked them, it might still be there.

He was knocking his way through a scrubby row of cottonwood when he heard a piercing whistle, off in the distance. He crashed through the stunted trees, looking for sound and light, and found them a quarter mile down the road, where the gravel dipped and there was a little sheltered hollow, covered and hidden by windbreak trees. Jake caught sight of a horse's body, collapsed on the gravel with its tack still on, and ran even harder.

But then he stopped in shock

"Jesus Christ," Stanley yelped as he came up beside Jake, who was staring at the sight before him. "It was a fucking tiger!"

Jake looked down, where Bonnie was crouched with Sam over their missing man. Hrafn was on the ground, looking flattened and possibly dead, and there was a tiger – an honest to god tiger – collapsed on top of him. No wonder Kat hadn't been able to move him – it probably weighed twice what she and Hrafn did combined.

It was also a very dead tiger.

Courtesy of the shining silvery blade that was poking through its head. Hrafn's hand was still wrapped around the hilt.

"What the hell?" Jake gasped.



"Goddamned canned hunt ranches," Bill snarled later that night, polishing his shoes. The black leather was not quite mirror-finished, but if he kept working at it, he could probably see himself in it soon.

"Bill, calm down," Kim said. "You'll wake the kids."

Bill glanced guiltily towards the girls' room, and then where the crib was tucked around the odd little corner that they had used for a nursery when Linh was small, and had kept set up in hope. A forlorn hope it had been too, and while Ríkvé was a delight and a balm, Bill wasn't quite convinced they'd get to keep her once things went back to normal. She was a sweet little girl – surely she had family out there somewhere who would want her.

"A tiger, Kim! Some idiot had a goddamned tiger somewhere, and not enough sense to shoot it when the food ran out."

"I know, Bill."

"Friththjófsson might be tough as boot leather, but even he—"

"Bill," Kim interrupted his rant by putting a hand on his chin and tilting his head up, "put that down and come to bed."

Bill looked at the shoe and brush in hand, and put them down, wiping the shoe clean and tucking the brush back in his kit. He ducked into the bathroom long enough to wash his hands and brush his teeth.

Kim was waiting for him in bed.

He loved her so.



As far as Jake would have said, as recently as yesterday, Hrafn Friththjófsson was a really good farmhand with a weird thick accent and a penchant for flamboyant hairstyles. "Like Elmer Fudd with Yosemite Sam's mustache," was his dad's pithy description, which Jake avoided repeating even in his head, because Hrafn might be short and not quite fluent in English and probably a little cracked in the head, considering he firmly believed he had an angel on his shoulder – an angel named 'Oswald', hand to God – but he was also a man who could and had killed with little remorse. And yesterday he had killed a tiger with only a long knife.

Today, as Jake came into the medical clinic room and saw Hrafn's eyes as he looked up at Sam as the other farmhand finished off braiding his hair, maybe he had to revise his opinion a little.

Hrafn's eyes, which were usually a light brownish grayish greenish color, were silver and didn't look like eyes. They looked like wells, like binocular ends, like Jake could peer into them and see deeper than he should, deeper than he should be able to. They looked like they were windows into someplace deeper than Hrafn's skull.

'Jake,' Hrafn signed neatly, causing Sam to turn and look up.

"Jake," the tall man said. Like his boyfriend often had silvery pools of light where his eyes should be and it wasn't anything to be alarmed by.

"Sam...What the hell?"

Hrafn snorted, his face twisting up into a smirk that was full of mischief and trouble. Sam caught the expression, and tapped his finger against Hrafn's long nose. "Behave, for god's sake."

'Father not care,' Hrafn signed. 'Away fishing.'

"Bullshit."

"Sam..." Jake wanted an explanation, and he wanted it real soon now.

"He's being a brat." Hrafn responded to Sam's statement by sticking out his tongue, closing his eyes – thank god, Jake thought, because glowing eyeballs that looked like pools were freaky – and snuggled down in the bed.

'Hrafn sleeps. I go sleep now. Go away, you,' Hrafn signed, and tugged the blanket over himself with Sam's help.

Jake walked outside with Sam, until they were completely out of the building.

"I guess you have some questions..." Sam said.

"What the hell?!"

Sam laughed, and looked sidelong at Jake with a rueful expression. "You thought Hrafn was crazy when he said he had an angel, didn't you?"

"Angels don't exist!" Jake protested.

Sam frowned at him, his face hardening. "That’s a very limiting view to take, Jake. Especially because you've just seen him."

"I don't know what I saw! Weird fluorescent eye-drops, maybe, but that wasn't–"

"An angel? He's not too impressive now, I know. At the top of his game, he's kind of scary, when he's not infuriating. But he tore himself up saving me, and then the September Attacks came..."

"Are you saying Hrafn's angel is real and it was hurt by the bombs?"

Sam tilted his head and frowned. "More like all that death, all at once. Maybe. I'm not sure. He was dead, before he saved me. Maybe God didn't put him back together at full strength for some reason."

Jake had had enough, "And so he's lying in our medical clinic, sleeping off a tiger attack?! Because obviously, even being an angel isn't proof against Murphy's Law?!"

Sam gave Jake an annoyingly patient look, "Jake, maybe you should sit down. Take deep breaths. I know it's really disorientating, but there really is an angel sharing Hrafn's body. They have to have Vessels – human bodies, but they'll strong-arm people if they don't get a 'yes' first off – because they're kind of dangerous without them. The first one I ever met accidentally blinded someone because she was trying to look at him."

"What?" Jake yelped. "He's in the medical center!"

"Relax. Hrafn's been his Vessel a long time, Jake. Nothing's going to happen. Hrafn's his True Vessel – a perfect fit, a radiation suit, except protecting us from him."

Jake thought Sam's babble sounded like part of a flaky science fiction plot. In fact, maybe that was what he saw... maybe Hrafn's 'angel' was some sort of weird unknown phenomena. Or, if it actually was a real... being, for lack of a better word... maybe it was a higher dimensional being, like in 'Flatland' with the sphere talking to the Square, except it was talking through Hrafn because it couldn't talk to humans in its normal state because it was too confusing to three-dimensional beings.

Sam laughed when Jake said that. "Sure, whatever Jake. If it makes you happy, think of him as a four dimensional visitor. He's still an angel."

Jake frowned as Sam ambled off toward the horse paddock, and turned himself towards Bailey's. Horrible rotgut or not, he needed a drink.



Mimi took charge the day Hrafn came home from the med center a week later – she gave Bonnie a list of things to do before they got back, for her and Stanley and Sean, then grabbed the softest, warmest blankets she could and helped Sam hitch his mares to the wagon. The drop-off at the school was easy, and the empty milk cans rattled as they went to the med center.

Kenchy looked relieved to be discharging Hrafn, even though he fussed and worried. From what Jake had said about the displaced doctor, that was pretty standard behavior, so Mimi just wrote down all his instructions and let Sam question and fret. She even drove the wagon home to let Sam cuddle with his boyfriend in the back, and managed okay, she thought.

Hrafn roused enough to squawk a protest when Sam picked him up and carried him bridal-style into the house and up the stairs. Stanley, sweet dumb man that he was, didn't help anything by wolf-whistling. Sam didn't help either by reacting and giving Stanley the finger, which just made him, Kat, and Sean and even Bonnie laugh. Hrafn signed something one-handed that Mimi didn't quite catch, but his face was vile, and Bonnie just sniggered more.

Sadly, that was the best thing about Hrafn coming home.

The next morning he was installed on the living room couch, and in very poor humor. Mimi couldn't blame him – too tender to move much, though Dr. Kenchy Duwaly said he was healing extremely well, and too much in pain to read or do much light work of any kind. He managed half a glove in that needling technique he knew – he'd taken a ball of yarn from the knitting basket Mimi had herself appropriated from the attic months ago, and a steel tapestry needle as well – but he kept falling into naps.

"You need to take it easier, Hrafn," Mimi said.

"I am bored," Hrafn grumbled.

"Stanley and the kids will be back from the planting soon," Mimi said. She'd been left behind to look after Hrafn, and work on cheese-making. The calving season had left them with extra milk from cows suddenly producing again, and she was determined to figure this out, because cheese lasted a long time. And Hrafn, for all that he couldn't keep his eyes open for fifteen minutes at a time, did know a lot about dairying. Which was why she trying to make curds using the starter yeast she'd kept going all winter for bread, and asking him questions about cheese-making when he was awake.

"I am bored, and I can't even talk to my angel," Hrafn went on.

Mimi blinked at that, and came around to dinner table to look at him. Not that she wanted to encourage his delusion, but... "Why can't you talk to your angel?"

"Asvald is too tired. I did not die because of him, but he exhausted himself to save me," Hrafn admitted. He looked utterly weary and gray, curled under an afghan on the couch, one hand pressed over his eyes like the light pained him.

"Your angel is named 'Oswald'?" Mimi asked, trying not to laugh at the silliness of it.

Hrafn nodded.

"Okay..." Mimi said, because really what could she say to that. "Want to sit at the table and watch me try to make cheese?"

"Can I mock your attempts?" Hrafn asked, peeking up from beneath his shielding hand.

"Of course. But I'll mock back," Mimi said, and came into the living room to give him a hand up.

"That's a fair trade," Hrafn said.



Sam had finished with the milk run and had headed over to Gracie's to see if he could pick up something in the way of a treat for Hrafn. Carrots or parsnips – something they didn't already have on the farm that would be mild and sweet enough to tempt him to eat more. Well, sweet enough to tempt Gabriel into wanting to eat, which would mean Hrafn eating as a side effect. The angel's presence meant that Hrafn was healing unbelievably rapidly, but Gabriel was really weak still, and not able to repair Hrafn all the way. So, extra food – sweet and tempting as Sam could scrounge for it.

To his surprise, there was a train of four mules, laden with packsaddles, lined up outside the store, and a tall black man dickering with Dale at the doorway. As Sam approached, he realized what the man had for trade was... anti-biotics? And Sam recognized those bottles, still with their plastic safety-wrap – those were strong painkillers – oxycodone, in fact. There was no way the man had that legally – but Sam didn't care, oh hell no. He'd buy that shit for Hrafn, if the man's price was anywhere near something he could afford.

Dale and the man looked up when he approached, falling silent.

"You have oxycodone," Sam said, not quite believing it even as he looked at the boxes open in front of Dale for inspection.

"I'm buying it," Dale snapped.

Sam frowned at the teenager. Dale and Skylar would mark it up a hundred percent, if not more. They'd turned out to have the hearts of robber barons, now that Dale's store was the only one getting anything resembling supplies on regular basis. Sam was pretty sure they were buying from hijackers and diverters to get their supply.

Case in point, the guy with the four mules... he had pharmaceuticals, and those were just impossible to get through legal means. So he was a grey or black marketeer.

"Well, now. We haven't made a deal yet," the man purred to Dale.

"We're making a deal now! You can't just sell to someone else!"

"If he has a competitive offer—-"

"I just want one bottle," Sam said.

"I'm only selling by the case," the man snapped.

"One case, then," Sam said.

"Don't cut me out, Winchester," Dale snarled.

"It's for Hrafn," Sam said.

Dale's anger cleared up a little, though he still looked pissed. "I'll sell you a bottle – two! – at cost, then. But I'm buying the lot. No one is going to undercut me on price," he said.

"Ah, a budding monopolist, I see," the man said, grinning, and then he and Dale got down to serious bargaining.

Sam watched the back and forth with nerves, and was relieved when the price of four small diesel engines plus several large bags of salt was reached. Dale immediately cut open one of the boxes, took two bottles out, and shoved them at Sam. "Consider it payment for the smoked horse-meat last week. Sign the register, and we're clear for this."

Sam signed the ledger book that Dale and Skylar had been using to keep track of their invoices, and winced. The oxycodone was expensive as hell – hopefully, it would be enough for Hrafn, or they'd wind up slaughtering another horse to pay for things.

The trader was securing some of his new goods to his mules when Sam came out the door. Dale's workers were banging around in the back of the store, pulling out the rest of what he was owed.

"That was an interesting transaction," he remarked. "Naked cut-throat greed, it's not rare these days, but that young man is clever with it."

Sam tucked the drug bottles into his jacket and zipped it up, securing them from theft or loss as best he could. "Dale's on his own. His mother died in Atlanta."

"Ah," the man said. "He seems to be doing all right then. Perhaps I will come trade with him again..."

"If you have medicine again," Sam said, "you'll find buyers. Mister..?"

"Yuri Ivanovitch Koltsemirov. And you?"

"Sam Winchester," Sam said automatically, and then blinked, "Your name's Yuri?"

"Sure," the trader said with a grin. "Haven't you ever heard of Black Russians?"

Sam rolled his eyes.

"And this is Ralph," Yuri said, patting the enormous canine at his side. Said beast looked up at Sam with an open happy face, and bounced down into a play-bow.

"Hey, Ralph..." Sam smiled at the red dog, and petted its huge head. It dropped at filthy and battered tennis ball into his hand.

"Damn," Dale said quietly. He'd come up to drop one of the fifty-pound bags of salt in Koltsemirov's pile of goods.

Sam looked up, and grimaced. "Mayor Andersen..."

Koltsemirov looked askance at them, and then over to the mayor and the men walking with him. It was Carmichael, the town manager, and Deputy Koehler.

"This is going to be a mess," Dale groaned.

"What? Why?" Koltsemirov asked.

"The mayor keeps blocking me when someone from outside of town tries to buy a lot of salt."

"Ah..." Kolsemirov turned to Sam, "Mr. Winchester, if you would do me a great favor and take Ralph somewhere for a few minutes. He's a good fellow, but I'd rather he not be here if a... disagreement breaks out. He's quite protective you see."

Sam looked down at the huge dog that was still wagging its tail hopefully and eyeing ball pointedly, and then grimaced. The dog could turn a loud argument into a lethal fight, as big as it was.

"Yeah, I can do that. C'mon boy, c'mon, Ralph, let's go throw your ball in the park."



Jake looked across the park – just off Main Street, up Flora, it was just big enough for a pick-up game of soccer under its planted elms. Except the elms had all been chopped down and rooted up for firewood, leaving huge ugly gashes in what should have been a shaded meadow for the kids to run in and play on the plastic equipment.

There was a big red dog, shaggy and lupine, chasing a tennis ball across the grass. Sam Winchester was throwing it. A cluster of children were whooping encouragement, and when the dog brought back the ball, they mobbed the animal with petting hands.

Jake looked at the animal with a weather-eye. It was big, and had the rubbery grey-black marks of scars on its nose and jaw. He wasn't going to trust it around kids quite yet.

"Where did the dog come from, Sam?" he asked.

"He came in with the trader," Sam said, his attention focused on throwing the ball, with a snapping pitch that resulted in a screwball that had the dog falling over itself to twist for the ball.

"Trader?" Jake asked, perking up with interest. Someone from outside meant news, and maybe useful supplies.

"Guy calling himself Koltsemirov, came in with four mules and Ralph," Sam nodded at the dog, who was trotting back with an absolutely filthy ball in its mouth. "He has cipro, oxycodone, all kinds of meds."

"Meds?" Jake breathed. Of all the things the medical center didn't have, drugs were at the top of the list. They could tear up sheets for bandages and boil instruments for sterilization, but drugs were impossible to replicate. The best they'd been managing was pot carefully ignored by the deputies and alcohol made for fuel used as antiseptic.

"He was negotiating with Dale Turner for salt and supplies when the mayor showed up." Sam didn't bother to conceal his frown, and tossed the ball for the dog hard, way into the stump-holes of the ravaged trees.

"Oh," Jake said.

"Yeah," Sam sighed.

"It's not that bad. Gray Anderson owns half the mine – he's a business man. He knows how to negotiate a trade," Jake told Sam, trying to convince himself that this was going to come out all right as he spoke to the other man.

Sam gave him a hard look, then shrugged, turning away to focus on the dog.

"He's a big thing," Jake ventured after a moment, trying for something innocuous.

Sam was apparently willing to go along with it, because he ruffled the big animal's ears as it trotted back. "Yeah, but you want a big dog on the roads. People are less likely to attack if there is a big dog around to bite them."

"That explains those Rotties you've got," Jake said.

"Fenja and Menja are cow-dogs," Sam said. "We couldn't keep a dog that couldn't pull its own weight.... we had a nasty collie dog for a while – it tried to bite and wouldn't herd the cattle."

"What happened to it?"

Sam twisted into a rueful smile. "Hrafn killed it. And skinned it. And then we ate it."

Jake grimaced. That explained Jenny Brubaker's new coat at Christmas...

"Yeah," Sam agreed to Jake's unhappy look. "But we were kind of starving then. Yak milk only gets you so far."

Jake frowned – he'd seen the pinkish milk from Kat Brubaker's yak herd, and worked up his courage to taste it on a trip to the Richmond farm one Saturday, when there was enough to spare him, an adult, half a glass. The calcium and fat were worth the strangeness.

"You said the mayor was negotiating for drugs..."

Sam rolled his eyes, and handed off the ball to one of the kids to throw, before the stepped away from the knot of grade-schoolers and the dog who was basking in their enthusiastic admiration.

"I know I'm not from around here Jake, but if the mayor screws this up..." Sam murmured soft and fierce.

"He won't. He knows how hard it is to get drugs. And how much we need antibiotics–"

"He hoards the salt, Jake. It's the only really valuable thing we've got to trade beside the food, which we need for ourselves. But he sits on it like a broody dragon. We can't eat the salt, Jake."

Jake frowned at Sam. He hadn't voted for Mayor Andersen, but the man had been elected quite legally. "We have to trust that he knows what he's doing, Sam."

Sam just rolled his eyes again, and muttered, "Hrafn needs medicine, Jake. The pot helps, but not enough."

Oh, Jake thought, that's what eating him.

"He'll get it, Sam. Don't get yourself worked up over it. The mayor knows how much we need supplies for the med center."

Sam's doubting yet wistful look made Jake feel like a heel for his false reassurance. He wasn't entirely sure Grey wouldn't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, if the trader did have antibiotics and painkillers and had been trying to negotiate with Dale. The teenager was too young to really have the responsibility for the town's grocery and general store, but he had managed to keep it semi-stocked for months. If selling salt by the bushel would get them drugs that were desperately needed, maybe the mayor would let things go for once.



"He had drugs?" Stanley asked again. Mimi wanted to thump him, just a little bit. Sam needed reassurance, not Stanley's incredulity.

Sam responded by reaching into his jacket and taking out a bottle – a big bottle, labeled oxycodone.

"I took this to the med-center, asked Dr. Duwaly to check it – he doesn't have the lab to run a chemical analysis, but it was still sealed with plastic, and the pills are the right shape and color and markings. He doesn't think they're counterfeit – since I left another bottle with him for the med-center, I think he’s pretty sure of."

Mimi frowned at the bottle. "But where did they come from?"

Sam hefted the bottle in his hand and said, "Probably fell off the back of a Red Cross truck. As long as they work, it's fine by me."

Mimi raised her eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. Sam was willing to take a chance that he was receiving stolen medicine – she'd tried to arrange the theft of pesticides right after the bombings, which was she would probably admit was worse, if pressed.


"Hrafn?" Sam said softly, looking into the darkened room.

The figure in the bed stirred, but the eyes were silvery when he looked up at Sam, not Hrafn's hazel. Gabriel was leaking out again.

"Is he... how is he?" Sam asked, closing the door and moving over to sit on the bed.

'Crappy' Gabriel signed, not daring to speak. He'd tried that once at the med-center, and blown out every electrical device in the room, even though they'd all been broken since the EMP months ago.

Sam laid his hand on that familiar face, stroking whiskers and cheekbone.

"Can he hear me?"

'Yes. Tired, not sleep.'

"I have a surprise for you, then. Both of you."

Gabriel lifted the body's eyebrows, and signed, 'Give?'

Sam chuckled, and pulled the bottle of pills out, showing it to Gabriel.

'Drugs?'

"Oxycodone. It's a painkiller, an opiate. Dr. Duwaly gave me a prescription for Hrafn, so it's even legal for me to have them."

'Human laws shit,' Gabriel signed.

"Yeah yeah, and you're the Angel of Judgment," Sam said. "Do you think you can swallow one with water?"

Gabriel shrugged, signing 'Open bottle?'

Sam got what he wanted, and opened the bottled, shaking out one of the pills onto his hand. Gabriel peered at it, and then nodded his head. He let Sam feed the pill to him, and then help him drink a glass of water.

Sam held Gabriel, held him and Hrafn both, as the drug began to work and they turned boneless and limp from lack of pain. He stroked the brown hair in its plait, and smiled at the sleepy glaring he got in response, from eyes that were hazel instead of leaking silver.

"You sleep now. Both of you."

They nodded, two beings entwined in one body, and Sam pulled the blanket up over them before slipping out the door and back downstairs.



Sam found himself stretched out on a blanket, in a field of grass and flower. There was a picnic basket right by his nose, and he could smell the wonderful wakeful smell of coffee.

"A samovar? Really?" he heard Gabriel above him.

"I like the Rus," replied Yuri Koltsemirov in his liquid voice.

"Uh-huh," the archangel said in flat disbelief. He shifted then and asked, "Sammy? Is that you?"

Sam opened his eyes to look up at Gabriel, and yawned. When Gabriel picked him up and held him out in the air, Sam hissed and struggled. He didn't like dangling like that.

"You have to support him," Yuri said. "Otherwise you're going to drop him."

"I know that. I'm not entirely stupid, you know," Gabriel snapped, and tucked Sam against his shoulder. Sam took the opportunity to bat at the garland of mistletoe and lily sitting on the archangel's head.

"Stupid? .. like turning human souls into... what are they? Exactly?"

"I don't know. Not demons."

"I can see they're not demons. They're not tormented and twisted – they're pure, almost refined." Sam saw the glare Yuri shot Gabriel. "Have you been practicing alchemy, old man?"

"Uhm... maybe?"

Yuri rolled his eyes. "Alchemical soul transformation, interfering with destiny, raising people from the Inferno? What will you do for an encore? Found another religion?"

"You making it sound like a planned all that."

"I know you, old man. You don't plan a thing. You haven't the brains to."

"HEY!"

Yuri smiled at Gabriel's outrage, and plucked Sam off his shoulder. "You're just a baby, aren't you? Look at you, with down on your wings, spots on your back, and no mane yet."

Sam wriggled until the man put him down, and tried to get to the smell of coffee in the strange urn. That was when the clockwork raven landed in front of him and cawed. Sam tried to worm past it, but it spread its wings and cawed again.

"You're too little for coffee, right now, Sam," Gabriel said, scooping him up and dumping him back on the picnic blanket. Turning to Yuri, he asked, "Why is there coffee in the pot, anyway?"

"It is Sam's dream. He misses coffee," came Hrafn's voice from the raven, croaking out of a mouth of gears and bronze. "You should know that, eagle-chieftain."

"No comments from the peanut gallery," Gabriel huffed.

The raven threw its wings wide, laughing and laughing. Sam darted forward, fascinated by the green-brown metal of the feathers, and tried to bat at them. Instead, Sam was swept up in hands articulated of pipe and wire and worm screws, as Hrafn shifted from bird shape to man shape, and then from metal to flesh. Sam wound up in Hrafn's lap, half covered by the square cloak pinned off Hrafn's right shoulder, laying against the scabbard handing horizontal off Hrafn's belt.

Hrafn patted Sam on the head, taking special care to scratch Sam's ears, which made Sam rumble out a purr.

"Hello, Hrafn Friththjófsson."

"It is good to see you, luminous one."

"It's not like I never visited," Gabriel pouted.

"Just infrequently and never with notice," Yuri said.

Hrafn laughed again, and pushed Sam away from trying to chew on his hair, which wasn't braided for once, but wrapped and pinned up around his head in knots and twists. It was his weirdest hairstyle yet, but it went with the rough tunic, trousers, and homemade shoes in a way that just fit. He smelled faintly of horse, and smoke, and something unfamiliar that Sam suspected might be sheep. Sam tried climbing his arm, curious enough to bat at the knotted hair Hrafn was sporting, but the man gave him a sly look, and dumped Sam on his back, rubbing Sam's belly in a way that had Sam wriggling away even as he flapped his wings.

"Are you going to bring out all my failures?" Gabriel asked.

"Please do not," Hrafn interjected. "We do not have years."

Yuri laughed, and said, "No, we don't. But you, old man, I want to know why you're lingering in one little town in the middle of nowhere. I felt Hrafn gothi's petition, and was surprised by it, but I never expected to find you lingering. So why are you?"

Gabriel frowned, and Sam watching felt sorry for him. He squirmed out of Hrafn's hands, and scrambled to where Gabriel sat, looking much smaller and sadder than an archangel should. Sam nudged his head under Gabriel's chin, and purred at him.

"He doesn't have the strength to leave," Hrafn said, and Sam drew back at that in surprise. He made an inquiring sound, and Gabriel sighed even as he scratched Sam's ears.

"I'm a little worn out just now, yeah."

"I am awake, truly awake and walking the world, eagle-chieftain. Not roused to help you design a trick, or to help you confuse a godly rival, but awake and walking," Hrafn said sternly. "You are not just a little worn."

Sam could see the frown cloud Yuri's features, and ducked down, into the layers of Gabriel's wings, folded around him like cloaks, like coats made of fog and light. He huddled against Gabriel's side.

"Sammy... stop that."

"Are you dying, old man?"

Gabriel snorted at that, a bitterly amused rumble that shook Sam where he was pressed against Gabriel's side. "I was dead. Lucifer killed me with my own sword – but next thing I know, I'm alive again and already diving into Hell."

"And you pulled out Sam Winchester..." Yuri said leadingly.

"And his brother, the poor bastard that Michael was wearing. I got them to safety, up into the world and out to a safe place for the Winchesters..."

"And then you passed out," Hrafn added.

"I did not!"

"Who woke up to Sam and his brother and their host Bobby frowning at him? I believe that would be me, angel," Hrafn said.

"You are weak, old man," Yuri said.

"I'd have been all right in a few more days–"

"It had been weeks–" Hrafn interrupted.

"But some humans decided setting off atomic bombs would be more fun."

Yuri sipped from his coffee cup, and asked, "You are an archangel. The bombs killed many humans, millions of them, yes. But how did such weapons affect you?"

Sam tilted his head. He wanted to know too. He couldn't figure out how nuclear bombs had hurt an archangel. It wasn't like Gabriel was something that could die of radiation poisoning, or even a direct hit.

Gabriel looked away and shrugged, shoulders and wings rising and falling in a sad wave. "I don't know, Jori. I was getting better, but all that death, it was almost as bad as getting stabbed again. There was just too much of it, all at once." Gabriel turned back to look at the other man and asked, "Didn't you feel it?"

"Yes, of course I did. I even felt some of the pagans feasting – the ones who eat violent death, or deaths from fire, they have grown fat from that."

Gabriel ran a hand over his eyes. "Oh great. Thor."

"The Thunderer is honorable, eagle-chieftain..."

"He might be my friend, but he's also a lunatic and a lummox. And his sacrifices are by blade or flame..."

"He's not the one to worry about," Yuri said.

"What?" Gabriel's head snapped up, and Sam looked up from where he'd been nibbling on one of Gabriel's shiny, glowing feathers and meeped in confusion

"There are gods moving now that haven't had a feast in centuries. Tattered things that ate the scraps of witch burnings and arsons – they've had a feast of fire. They'll be looking to establish themselves again."

"I may be weak, but I can still deal with diminished gods..." Gabriel growled.

"But can Vali?"

Gabriel stiffened, his wings fanning above him. Sam yelped, and scrambled away to hide by Hrafn. The Norseman's cloak looked safer than Gabriel's side, all of the sudden.

"What do you know about Vali?" the archangel rasped out.

"I saw him in the town square. Congratulations on hiding him so well – I could barely feel his divinity even when he was close enough touch. He didn't recognize me." Yuri sighed, and frowned at Gabriel. "Does he have any idea who he is?"

"No. No, and don't you say anything!"

"He should–"

"Don't say anything to Vali! He'd come apart again!"

"Old man, what have you been doing with that boy?"

"Protecting him! I'll always protect him."

"Because you failed all your other sons..."

Gabriel looked stricken. Sam whined, and took a step away from Hrafn's side, to go comfort the archangel, but Hrafn caught him around the middle and tapped him on the nose. "This is turning private and painful. Time to wake up, Sam."

Sam gasped, his eyes flying open. He was still by Hrafn's side, but in their room and bed, his arm flopped over Hrafn's lap. The Norseman had his hands in Sam's hair, petting his head and looking sad.

"What the hell, Hrafn?"

"They need to talk, and we did not need to be witnesses."

"You pushed me out of there! Why did you do that?! Gabriel was going to explain! He never explains! He just spins lies and gibberish!

"He is the Liesmith, Sam."

"Hrafn!"

Hrafn rolled his eyes. "Because even Gabriel deserves to have his dignity – no matter that he tosses it away like trash much of the time."

Sam glared. "I wanted answers."

"You'll have to wait."

"Crap. I hate waiting."

"I know," Hrafn said, and closed his eyes.

Sam stared at him in disgust, then gave in and lay back down. He had to work in the morning, and as much as he'd like to stay up arguing, he couldn't. Damnit.



Hrafn woke to the clawed gouges in his side aching, and fingers digging into his sore muscles rhythmically. He blinked bleary eyes to see Sam lying against the pillow, his eyes soft with concern.

"Still hurts?"

Hrafn nodded. Even Sam's efforts at soothing and distracting him weren't helping against the aching and the itching. Even Gabriel's efforts weren't helping, and he knew his angel was pushing his body to knit together faster than it should, was damping down the soreness than had settled between his bones.

"Want another pill?" Sam asked, and turned away, reaching for the jar beside the bed, and the cup and pitcher.

Hrafn sighed, and let Sam give him another pill. He had to let Sam help him drink, because his hands were so sore that he had trouble holding the cup. He was so tired of being hurt.

And Gabriel was no help. His angel had gone quiet, gone inward, focusing on healing their body, and sparing little energy to talk to Hrafn. It was almost like being alone, with Gabriel so distracted, and Hrafn disliked it severely.

He fell back against the pillows as Sam put the cup back in its place and stared up at the ceiling in frustration. The medicine worked, he could feel it creeping through his flesh, rubbing the pain away like a mother rubbing smudges off her child's cheeks, but the lack of pain just meant he felt his frustration and loneliness more.

"Better?" Sam asked as he turned back to pull the blankets back up over them both.

"The pain is gone," Hrafn admitted. He raised a listless hand, and gestured, "but..."

"It's frustrating being hurt, I know." Sam said.

"Very..."

"You're a lot better as a patient than I expected," Sam said.

Hrafn turned to frown at him. "What did you expect?"

"Oh, something like my brother... trying to work through the pain. Never letting it stop you, that sort of thing."

"Do I look stupid?"

Sam laughed at that, and pressed his cheek against Hrafn's shoulder. "No. No, you don't. You... sometimes you remind me of Dean, but you're a lot more sensible than he is... and..."

"And?"

"You're calm. Dean was always emotional, kind of explosive. Happy, angry, sad, it was always melodramatic with him. You're calm, like … a pool, or the ocean. Peaceful, and deep. I could curl up in your calm."

"That's kind..." Hrafn said dubiously. He remembered the ocean, the furious winter storms and the way it tossed whales and seals up. Perhaps Sam, having grown up in this land of shallow streams and few rivers, thought an ocean was like a pond, smooth and still...

Sam grinned, and nudged Hrafn's shoulder. "Not a good analogy, huh?"

"Oceans are dangerous," Hrafn said.

"Yeah," Sam said. "And deceptive." He reached out his hand, and stroked at a tendril of hair escaping down Hrafn's cheek. "It fits. Calm and deep and dangerous, but really just..." Sam stopped.

"Sam..." Hrafn breathed, shifting to press up against Sam's hand where it played with his hair.

"Yeah, that's good," Sam breathed. "Can I... you up for this?"

"Whatever you want," Hrafn murmured, pressing back as Sam's fingers worked into his scalp.

Sam chuckled. "Hrafn, stop giving me blanket permission. You don't know what I'll do."

Hrafn snuggled down into the bed, working a little closer to Sam and his large hands and his warm chest and the feeling of togetherness that stirred in Hrafn's chest.

"You're kind, Sam. I trust you."

"Aw, crap, Hrafn," Sam sighed, and leaned forward, pressing Hrafn on his back to kiss him. Sam's mouth was warm and soft and he drew the kissing out, slow and delightful even as his hands came up, stroking carefully over Hrafn's chest, avoiding the tender healing scars even as he touched everywhere else.

Hrafn squirmed and broke into giggles when Sam made a frustrated noise and yanked on the waist of his pajama trousers. Sam was so impatient sometimes, though Hrafn made appreciative sounds as Sam kept kissing him even as he wrapped his big hand around Hrafn's cock.

"I want..." Sam stopped, and pulled away, his face twisting for a moment into an embarrassed grimace. He shifted, and rearranged his hands nervously. "Will you let me fuck your mouth?" Sam blurted, and then glanced away.

"That's all?" Hrafn said. From the way Sam had fidgeted, Hrafn had thought he had wanted something more vicious, more embarrassing. Hrafn didn't mind playing the soft cat for Sam; after all, he was one, and Sam asked very little most of the time. Hands, usually, and tongue, and sometimes fucking between his thighs. But Sam had taken to Hrafn's limits, that he'd only truly play a woman for the gods, now that he had regained some of his manliness, with much grace, and no spoken complaint, so if Sam wanted to be a little more forceful that usual, Hrafn thought he could oblige.

"'That's all'–? Hrafn, I..." Sam cut himself off, shook his head, and leaned over to kiss Hrafn again. His hands were warm where they stroked over Hrafn's sides and down, careful over his tender scars and forceful everywhere else.

Hrafn hissed at Sam's hand on his cock, at the way his bedmate used his size to engulf and twist. He shifted and panted as Sam pulled them both into arousal, making their cocks stand and touch together. Sam liked it best when Hrafn was visibly flushed and hard, before they went further. He liked, as far as Hrafn could tell, to see his bedmates flushed and wanting before he pursued his own satisfaction.

Which was why Hrafn was flushed red, sweating and with a prick that was uncovered and aching when Sam finally moved. He pulled Hrafn up by the shoulders, positioning him the way he wanted – not that Hrafn minded, but Sam tended to fuss, and seemed to think Hrafn was weaker than he was – before he moved himself to kneel up, one knee bent, one foot on the floor.

Hrafn sighed as Sam curled one hand around his head, fingers brushing his nape even as the pad of Sam's head pushed his jaw up. It was gentle pressure, steady but sure, moving him to what Sam thought was a good position. Hrafn glanced up, and saw the pure and inward concentration on Sam's face, and smiled ruefully for a moment.

Then Sam's cock was brushing his lips, and he licked out, his tongue flicking over the head before retreating as Sam twitched forward. He used his hand to guide Sam, gripping firmly around Sam's shaft to keep him from thrusting too hard while he was working at taking Sam's cockhead in. He didn't want to vomit from an ill-timed, too-deep thrust, after all.

He was careful, shielding his teeth with his lips, barely letting them scrape, just enough that Sam grunted and twisted his hips. Mostly he pressed with his tongue, and sucked, and occasionally glanced up to judge Sam's state.

Sam groaned, and sighed, and thrust very very gently, until Hrafn pulled back, shook off Sam's hand, and asked, "I thought you wanted my mouth to fuck, Sam."

Sam shivered at that, and grimace in that embarrassed, angry way that Hrafn found amusing as a pup's. "You– just you– Damnit!" Sam growled, and moved back long enough to regroup, and leaned down to kiss Hrafn breathless.

Then he climbed back into the bed, this time straddling Hrafn's body, pushing him up against the pillows.

"This. I want this," Sam said, and used his thumb to push open Hrafn's mouth again, used his weight to pin Hrafn across the shoulders as he fed Hrafn his cock. Hrafn opened for Sam willingly, awkward angle though it was, and allowed Sam to control him with a hand against his jaw as Sam shoved into his mouth.

The way Sam growled and grunted, and the sharp shallow thrusts of cock against his lips and tongue was good. Not easy, not even simple, exactly, but cherished because they were difficult and desired and Hrafn could do this for Sam very well. He hollowed his cheeks, flicked his tongue, used his teeth and lips and the tilt of his jaw to make Sam gasp and grunt and grip.

Hrafn was breathing hard, one hand bruisingly tight where it gripped Sam's thigh, the other tangled in Sam's big hand when Sam began to stutter in his thrust, becoming harder, erratic, his control eroding as his orgasm welled up.

Soon he snarled, and his hips thrust hard once, twice and sputtered. Hrafn swallowed hurriedly, trying to get past Sam's emission before the taste hit, and almost gagged when Sam's last thrust hammered at just the wrong moment.

He pulled away, or tried to, and got tightening fingers against his neck, before Sam realized what he was doing, and released him. He panted, glancing away, as Sam eased himself to the side, no longer straddling Hrafn.

"You... okay?" Sam asked, a little breathless.

Hrafn nodded, and licked his lips. The taste lingered in his mouth, and while Sam's cock was clean and nothing to object to, the salty fluid of Sam's release was not something he particularly enjoyed.

"Water?" Sam asked, and when Hrafn nodded, reached out of bed to pour Hrafn a cup. He had to hold it while Hrafn drank, as Hrafn was still breathing like a bellows, and wriggle a jaw suddenly sore.

"Was it too much?" Sam asked, after Hrafn had gulped down two cupfuls.

Hrafn glanced at Sam in surprise, and snorted. "No, Sam. Don't look like that. I'm just... out of practice, I suppose."

"Oh. Good. I'm glad," Sam said, and tipped his chin up to kiss him again, very gently and sweet.


Kissing Hrafn soothed Sam down from his twitchy skin and heaving lungs. The other man soaked up affection like a particularly needy sponge, and Sam got to nuzzle and cuddle without abandon. After what he had done, after pushing Hrafn's chin up and fucking into his mouth until the other man had gagged, the fact that Hrafn allowed Sam, wanted Sam to kiss him was a balm to Sam's worries.

He pulled Hrafn close, settling down against the piled pillows, and running his hand lightly down the man's chest, with its new and old scars, and over his shoulders with the head of the lion tattoo peeking around his shoulder. Hrafn smiled at him, and arched into the touch. Sam traced Hrafn's collarbones, and tugged at the smattering of dark and light hairs – Hrafn barely had any gray on his head, but his body showed how old he'd been before Gabriel had come, how he'd been reaching the end of his life in that brutal and brief time before the angel.

"Sam..." Hrafn murmured, not quite a complaint, as Sam let his hand drift lower, over the little bit of fat Hrafn still had left, even though they'd all been wanting this past winter. It was, Sam thought, just a tiny bit sexy, the softness of his belly, the gentle way it gave under Sam's fingers.

Sam pushed down further with his hand, teasing above Hrafn's cock. His lover's hiss of frustration and aborted upward thrust made Sam chuckle, and press harder, teasing more.

"Sam..." Hrafn murmured again, a little growling seeping into his voice.

"You lie back," Sam said, and swung himself to sit up and push Hrafn back against the headboard of the bed, almost pinned between the pillows and Sam's bulk.

"'m falling asleep, Sam," Hrafn said, and proved it with a yarn.

"Don't," Sam told him. He flipped his hand into a better position, and ran his fingers over the line of Hrafn's cock, down to cup the other man's balls.

Hrafn gasped at the squeeze Sam gave his testicles, and whimpered at the slow tugging as Sam stroked them. Sam smirked, feeling mischievous as his hand brushed against Hrafn's cock. He was teasing deliberately, hands just occasionally going where Hrafn wanted them most.

"Sam...please..." Hrafn gasped.

"Well, since you asked nicely," Sam teased, and bent over Hrafn's uninjured side, heavy enough against the man that he couldn't move away easily. He breathed deeply and then flicked his tongue out, brushing just against the tip of Hrafn's cock. Sam smiled and drew back when Hrafn gasped, turning to look at his lover's face.

Hrafn was flushed, and sweaty, and looked halfway to asleep and all the way to falling over, when Sam rearranged his plans for the evening by sliding down the bed and gripping his cock tight again. Sam paused for a moment even as Hrafn whined and tried to squirm in some direction, either forward or backward.

He did shut up when Sam licked out on Hrafn's cock again, just a gentle alien touch against him. Hrafn did tend to shut up and whimper when blowjobs were on the table. It could even get him to pay attention, and Sam didn't feel bad about using it against the man.

So Sam waited for Hrafn to recover a little, and then pinched and tweaked at his foreskin, pulling that strange bit of flesh that slid round Hrafn's cock and its bright, ferocious owner.

Sam laughed, and leaned up to kiss Hrafn again, which Hrafn allowed with a sleepy-eyed glare but it got him to lay back down.

Sam kissed down Hrafn's body again, careful of the wrenched muscles and tender scars where a tiger had tried to swipe Hrafn away from them all. It had been Gabriel's intervention and Gabriel's sword that had stopped that – and for all the trouble and pain, it was Gabriel who was healing Hrafn far faster and better than a human could normal.

So when Sam put his mouth down on Hrafn's shaft, he had one hand petting Hrafn's injured side, telling him he was cherished and good, and one hand under Hrafn's hips, stroking his ass and telling him he was filthy and delightful. It was, Sam admitted to himself as he licked around the head of Hrafn's rather nicely proportionate cock.

It didn't take long, though Sam was a little surprised at how fast Hrafn went under his attention. The other man breathed deeply one, twice, four time in and all, and made a strangled whining groan even as he tried to push Sam off. Sam was having none of it – he wanted to feel Hrafn's orgasm, to taste it, to ride out the shudders that had Hrafn's hands tugging on his hair and his hips bucking up from the vise of Sam's arms and elbows and much heavier weight.

"Oh... Sam..." Hrafn murmured.

"Good, huh?" Sam grinned, and crawled back up the bed, to flop at Hrafn's side, and rest his chin on the other man's shoulder.

"Yes, Sam," Hrafn said, and yawned. He closed his tawny eyes, and Sam saw the moment he fell asleep, his face going from satiated to slack in a blink. Sam sighed – even though he knew Hrafn had no stamina, even with the long naps and light work – because he had wanted the cuddling and the quite talking that Hrafn sometimes obliged him with after sex.

"No chance of that now," Sam mumbled to himself, and tried to settle in for a snooze.

Hrafn shifted under him, and opened his eyes – silver eyes, not tawny, silver from lid to lid, in the weak candlelight.

"Gabriel?" Sam gasped. It couldn't be anything else – Hrafn's eyes were silver and Sam could see faint traceries stirring behind him, off the far edge of the bed, twisting and beating lines of light.

'Hey, Sam,' the angel said.

"Is... Hrafn's okay?"

'Yeah. Just asleep. You wore him out.' Gabriel smiled, and blinked his silver eyes.

"How are you—?"

'I may be too weak to drive, but Hrafn's passed out behind the wheel, so to speak.'

"How can I see you?" Sam asked, and touched Gabriel on the cheek, tilting his chin up the way he had with Hrafn. Except this wasn't for sex, this was so Sam could look into those impossible silver eyes, that were deeper inside than they should be.

'… I think I screwed up.'

"What? What do you mean?"

'When I was remade, I was already diving into Hell. You don't remember that – I stuffed most of your memories about Hell behind a wall—-'

"I remember Hell, Gabriel. Adam and me, we fell … forever, it felt like."

Gabriel looked so sad, his shining eyes dimming. 'No, Sam, you don't. There's a lot I hid from you. A lot I had to hide from you...'

Sam sat up, and loomed over the archangel. "You messed with my memories?"

'You were in Hell, Sam. You were alive and in Hell. It was a horror – wrong in ways that no human language has words for.'

Sam stared down at Gabriel, who looked small and vulnerable in Hrafn's body, even though Sam knew how vast the true form of an archangel was. He was a Vessel, Lucifer's True Vessel; he'd seen the fallen archangel in his ruined glory, twisted, folded, compressed in upon himself as Lucifer had abandoned the body he'd been using (a blond man name Nick, Sam knew that, accompanied by the faded burn of tears) and took Sam's. Afterward, it had been a house of mirrors and brief confusing glimpses out of his own eyes, and always the cold burn of Lucifer.

"You...okay, if it was so bad, and you got me out, what did you screw up?"

Gabriel smiled sweetly and reached up to tap Sam on the forehead.

"Holy..." Sam had to grab the headboard.

Gabriel moved to sit beside him, with the rustling of hundreds of gossamer wings, folded over and over each other. He looked nothing like Hrafn now, all blue-silver and sleek. There were shapes around him, like flowers or stars, and they flipped kaleidoscopically when Sam settled back.

Sam stared down at his own hands, and felt his gorge rise, as he saw through his hands to the muscles and bones beneath, and then further, to the folds of atoms and it was too much. He looked away, out the window, but then it was the home orchard, and the trees and sap running up and nutrients running down and he was off balance and nauseated.

Gabriel tapped his forehead again.

"What was that?!" Sam panted.

'I screwed up, and you can see too far. Lucifer had you molded and shaped for him, and never intended to let you go. All the places humans don't look into, can't look into, you could see them now, if I hadn't put up walls.'

"Like a psychic..?"

'Exactly like psychic except in every specific way,' Gabriel said.

"That's not helpful."

'I don't think you're quite human anymore.'

"Gabriel, I haven't been 'quite human' since I was six month old. Castiel calls me an abomination to me face."

'Well, technically, you are an abomination unto God.'

"Thanks. That's what I need to hear."

'...Maybe. You're not one of the Nephillim, and you're not a demon. It's more like if you turned those concepts inside out and backwards.'

"I'm an anti-demon?"

'No. Not yet.'

"But I might become... Hrafn?" Sam asked.

'I've had him for over two thousand years, Sam.'

Sam swallowed, fighting down his emotions. "I thought he was human..."

'He was, centuries ago. But I burn, Sam. I'm an archangel and burn. Put a little human soul next to me for long enough, and all the slag falls away.'

Sam swallowed again, and closed his eyes. He felt Gabriel's hand come up, stroking his hair, and then something soft and bristly drag over his back. He opened his eyes, and saw the faint traceries around Gabriel bending forward to fold around him. "Your wings... those are your wings..."

'Yeah.'

"Okay. Okay. You said this was a mistake. Why? What did you do wrong?"

'I've made you and Hrafn into something new. I Created.'

Sam blinked. "And that's bad because..."

'Father is the Creator. I'm His Herald and His Judgment, His Voice and his Scourge.'

"You think you, what, usurped God's place?" Sam blinked, and stared at Gabriel, appalled. "You think you usurped God? Also, 'Scourge'!?"

'Lucifer Created when he corrupted human souls into demons—'

"Lucifer was doing it to get back at God," Sam argued. "You weren't. Also... 'Scourge'?"

'I sat at my Father's left hand, Sam, not his right. Michael was my Father's Sword, the defender of mankind, who cast down Lucifer and all the rebel angels. But when the Nephillim were raised up and proved soulless and implacable, my Father sent me among them, to turn on them against one another. When mankind grew wicked, He sent me to stir the waters over the earth, and with Uriel I burnt Sodom for their selfishness, their pride, and their lack of charity on His orders. When Pharaoh's heart was hardened by the Ennead, He sent me to kill the Firstborn of Egypt..."

Sam stared at Gabriel.

'Sam?'

"Did God ever send you do something that wasn't mass-murder?" Sam bit out.

'I carried my Father's words to Abraham, to Daniel, to Tamar, to Elizabeth and Mary, even to Muhammad, though I had left Heaven by then.'

"All that service, you and the other angels. He just left you to flounder after that?

'We had the prophecies...'

"And a deadbeat dad. And I thought my Dad was a jerk."

'Sam...'

"Seriously, Gabriel," Sam began, "I used to believe that your Father cared about people, that He was good and kind and merciful and all that, but what the fuck? What kind of God sets an Apocalypse in motion? I mean, what the fuck?! Really?" Sam threw his hands wide in frustration, "That's who I was praying to all those years? The God who lets the world be dragged into the crapper because he's run off to Tahiti or wherever? That's the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God I've told about all my life? Really?!"

Gabriel was curled up, hugging himself and looking bleak, with tears in his eyes. 'He's still my Father, Sam.'

"Oh," Sam quietly, ashamed of his ranting. "Oh, I'm sorry, Gabriel. But he is a shitty Dad. To everyone, angels and humans."

Gabriel snorted, a pained little sound.

"Yeah, I'm hilarious." Sam said, and laid himself back down, drawing the angel close.

'You're a good man, Sam Winchester.'

"Well, I want to be, anyway," Sam said, and closed his eyes, tucking Gabriel up against him and trying to sleep. Maybe things would look better in the morning. Maybe Hrafn would wake up and put it all into perspective with calm words – Hrafn was so calm, so balanced. Sam loved him for that, and thought maybe Gabriel did too.

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