Fic: 'For Love is Strong as Death', 4/?

[sakuri69]

Title: For Love is Strong as Death

Characters/Pairings: TFW. Sam/Gabe, eventual Dean/Cas slash.

Summary: Four months after the apocalypse that wasn’t, Sam, Castiel and Gabriel are brought back to life at the same time and place, leaving Sam to deal with two suddenly human angels and the fact that he can never see his brother again...

Masterpost


So they packed up and left Iowa. And if both Sam and Gabriel were keeping somewhat obsessive watch over Castiel while they did so, no one mentioned it. South Dakota wasn’t far, as if Sam had been subconsciously circling closer since they’d started travelling, and it was the morning of New Year’s Eve by the time they passed through Sioux Falls and arrived at Bobby’s place.

Sam parked the car at the very edges of the salvage yard, not wanting to set the dogs barking by driving any closer. Bobby would be shocked and sceptical to see them as it was; he didn’t want to give the old hunter warning enough to shoot them before Sam had the chance to at least plead his case.

“Come on,” he murmured as he got out and went to grab his bag from the trunk. “We’ll walk the rest of the way.”

They meandered their way through the maze of rusted out car heaps, Gabriel peering into some of them with never ending curiosity while Sam steeled himself to what he was about to do. He felt irrationally nervous, like he’d become acclimatized to their self-imposed isolation and now ending it was a much greater trial than it rightfully should have been.

But this wasn’t about him, was it? Left to his own devices he wouldn’t be here at all; he’d be off hunting, eager to lose himself in the fight and the chase. The only reason he was here doing this was for the sake of his angelic companions. He’d already dropped the ball once with Castiel; he owed it to his friend to do all he could in helping restore his Grace. Even if this didn’t pan out, he had to try.

They weren’t far from the house when Sam abruptly stopped walking. There across the yard he could see Bobby’s heavy boots sticking out from underneath a car, tools scattered around him on the ground. Sam had almost forgotten that part; forgotten Crowley and his deals and Bobby being healed. It was a good thing - one of the only good things - worth remembering.

He ambled closer, Cas and Gabriel trailing behind him, and cleared his throat awkwardly into the quiet air, breath condensing in front of him. “...Hi.”

The metallic clanking of tools cut off and Bobby dug his heels into the ground, dragging himself out from underneath the car body.

Only it wasn’t Bobby.

It wasn’t Bobby who rose to his feet right there in front of them, who froze midway through the motion, whose eyes were wide and green and achingly familiar, fixed unblinkingly on Sam.

Stunned, Sam all but flinched backwards from the unexpected sight of his brother, and for a prolonged moment they just stared at each other, not reacting.

Then out of nowhere a gun fucking materialised in Dean’s hand, pointed at them with trademark unerring accuracy, and when he spoke his voice was guttural, furious. “What are you? What the fuck are you and what do you want?!”

Sam immediately threw his arms out to the sides, both in a gesture of harmlessness and the automatic instinct to try and shield the vulnerable angels accompanying him. “Woah, Dean!”

But his brother just bore down on them, stalking forward with a murderous expression. The hand that held the gun outstretched before him was rock steady, even while his mouth twitched like he was something feral. “You sons of bitches got some nerve, showing up here looking like that.” The gun flicked between Cas and Gabriel, like he couldn’t decide which of them he wanted to shoot first, and Sam knew he had to do something quick before this ended in tragedy.

He held up his hands pleadingly. “Dean. It’s us. Swear to god it’s really us.” Once again, however, he only found himself staring down the barrel of his brother’s gun as it swung back towards him.

“They’re dead,” Dean managed to grind out from between gritted teeth, before clamping his mouth shut and breathing hard through his nose. His gaze flickered, almost unwillingly, towards Cas. “All of them. You’re not them.”

In the periphery of his vision, Sam saw Castiel tilt his head, and knew without having to look properly that he’d be wearing that puzzled, vaguely sympathetic expression he so often got. He closed his eyes, hoping fervently that Cas wasn’t about to inadvertently provoke Dean into shooting one or all of them.

“Dean, you must believe in this. Our Father has seen fit to grant us second chances-”

“Don’t you do that, you bastard, don’t you try and sound like him.” Dean seemed torn now, the gun wavering between Cas and Sam, his eyes wild and too bright. He hadn’t pulled the trigger yet, probably due to that diehard aversion to harming anything that came in the guise of a loved one that Dean had always been prone to - but it was only a matter of time. A matter of seconds, possibly, and this was so not how he’d anticipated things playing out.

“Dude, it’s us. I know this is weird, okay? I do, but if you just let me explain-”

“Shut up.” Dean took a breath, steadying himself, and cast that same hard-eyed, cocksure grin in Sam’s direction that he’d aimed at a thousand monsters over the years. “You - you might have fooled me. Maybe. You’re pretty good, even sound like him. What are you, a shifter?” The smile dropped like a stone as he looked back at Cas. “But this one. It’s not right. Got the outfit all wrong. Cas doesn’t look like that.”

Gabriel made a despairing sound low in his throat. “I can’t believe we got brought back and survived this long only for your brother to kill us because he doesn’t like Castiel’s new fashion sense...!”

Dean darted a narrow glance at him, hesitating, like he was vaguely surprised anything could imitate that exact whining pitch Gabriel could hit when he wanted to. Sam snorted, privately thinking Dean should know damn well it was one of a kind, and quietly tried to shuffle the archangel a few more inches behind him.

But Castiel - he actually looked amused, plucking idly at the front of his T-shirt. “My coat is in the car, if that’s what you’re referring to.”

Dean smiled blankly. “Yeah, sure it is. Well look, if you really are Cas, guess you’re not too worried bout the bullet I’m about to put in you, right?”

Panicked, Sam started forward. “No, don’t -!”

His brother snarled, shoved him back.

And Cas said quietly, “I’m human, Dean.”

They were quiet, tension like static in the air as Dean visibly fought with himself. “What?” he snapped eventually.

“I was brought back human. So was Gabriel. And Sam no longer serves as a vessel.” He moved closer, apparently oblivious to the way Dean tensed up even more, only stopping when the barrel of the gun was pressed against his chest and a muscle in Dean’s jaw was twitching violently. “So shoot me, if you wish, but you should know I don’t have the Grace to heal myself. I will die, in front of you, again.”

Dean let out a breath like someone had gut-punched him, but he didn’t move, one way or another.

“Castiel, don’t be so stupid,” Gabriel hissed, leaning around Sam to glare.

Sam had to agree with the sentiment.

“Human,” Dean repeated tonelessly. “You’re human. You seriously expect me to believe-”

Bizarrely, Castiel looked all out triumphant at that. “This is your problem, Dean. You have no faith.”

And to Sam’s complete bemusement, Dean went white at the seemingly innocuous statement. Cas took the opportunity to step relentlessly closer, his mouth tilted upwards in what might have been a smile. It was the most light in his eyes Sam had seen in weeks. “What’s the matter? You don’t believe we deserved to be saved?”

Dean reeled backwards, expression gone slack. “What the hell? ...Cas?!”

Sam shared an incredulous look with Gabriel, uncomprehending. The archangel just shrugged and rolled his eyes off to the side, scathingly muttering something that contained the words disgusting epic love affair.

“S-Sam? What...?”

Sam held his hands up helplessly. “Dude, I don’t even know.”

The gun lowered like Dean forgot he was holding it. He looked between them as if half frightened by the sight. Spasmodically, one hand shot out to thunk against Sam’s chest, the gesture clumsy and desperate, groping. “...Sam. Sammy.”

Sam grabbed his brother’s wrist, his shoulder. It was almost as if Dean were the one newly back to life, and he had to make sure he was real; solid flesh and blood. He grinned shakily, said on a breath, “Yeah. S’me Dean.”

And suddenly he had an armful of brother, Dean slamming against his chest so hard he lost his breath, the gun clattering to the ground at their feet. It occurred to him distantly that it was true: Winchesters didn’t hug except for instances of death or resurrection. So possibly it said something awful about them that, by now, it was comfortingly familiar to drop his face against Dean’s shoulder and feel his brother’s hand clamped across the nape of his neck, Dean muttering disbelief into his ear. Moments exactly like this one had come to punctuate Sam’s whole life. In fact, only one little detail made this any different to all the other times.

Dean’s other hand was clenched in Castiel’s T-shirt.

xxx

Emotional reunion done with, hard practicality reasserted itself as soon as Bobby came outside, took stock of the situation and proceeded to call Dean nine kinds of stupid for hugging first and asking questions later. He’d had them back at gunpoint within moments, marched swiftly into the house and promptly subjected to every supernatural test the pair could think up.

“Now this - this is hospitality!” Gabriel enthused sarcastically, from where he was sitting in a dining room chair with his wrists bound to the arms of it.

Sam, in a similar position, gave him a warning look. Wasn’t like the caution was unwarranted.

They all had a number of shallow cuts across their arms where they’d been nicked with blades of silver and iron and varying other materials. They’d been chanted over, examined through mirrors, and asked every personal question Dean and Bobby could think up. Sam, at this point, looked like he had dandruff with so much salt caught in his hair, and now finally they were arriving at the last trial by holy water.

Dean held a shot glass out to Sam, and when he tossed it back without problem, his brother closed his eyes in what might have been profound relief. While Bobby unceremoniously did the same for Gabriel, Dean moved on to stand in front of Castiel. The angel - despite the fact that he was tied down, exhausted and powerless; had been probed and interrogated and almost shot - looked utterly content for the first time in... in months. Dean carefully raised the holy water to his mouth, and Castiel’s blue gaze remained unwavering and trusting and fixed with Dean’s as he drank.

Gabriel maybe threw up a little in his mouth.

Bobby cleared his throat gruffly when it was done. “Well. That’s that, then. All human, far as I can tell.”

“Yeah...” Dean agreed faintly, still obviously stunned.

There was ringing silence between them for long moments as most occupants of the room tried to absorb the massive revelations that had so suddenly been thrown at them.

It was broken, predictably, by Gabriel wiggling vigorously in his chair as he tugged futilely at his restraints. “Awesome. So glad you’ve at last managed to establish exactly what we told you over an hour ago. Now, anyone wanna do the honours and untie us?!”

Dean scowled at him as though taken aback. “Okay - Sam and Cas I get. But you... Dude, you’re just random. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Me?! Oh, that’s very nice, that is! Not like I got caught up in the Winchester whirlwind of destruction or anything - or, I don’t know, wasted my last dying breaths telling you how to stop the apocalypse!”

“Oh please, your ‘last dying breaths’ were lost in some chick’s-”

“Dean!” Sam glared pointedly at his brother, rubbing his newly freed wrist as he rose to his feet and Bobby moved to release Castiel. “Let’s just... take a minute here, okay?”

Dean grunted, cooperative as ever.

“Right.” Sam took a breath, then frowned. “Wait, first of all, what are you doing here? Where’s Lisa? And Ben? And the whole normal life? Ringing any bells here?”

His brother did a passable impression of a deer in headlights. “...Lisa?”

“Yeah, Dean, Lisa.”

Dean might have continued to flounder, but Bobby saved him the trouble, giving a dismissive snort of derision. “Idjit got himself kicked out three weeks in. Been mooching round here ever since - and lemme tell you. He’s a delight.”

“Yeah...” Dean reminisced wryly. “She wasn’t real big on trying to wash blood out of laundry every night. Or having weapons around the house. Or the identity fraud... the drinking... the nightmares... the teaching Ben to swear- Actually, that swearing thing was probably the deal-breaker, now that I think about it.”

Gabriel began to laugh obnoxiously.

“Dean!” Completely incredulous, Sam stuttered uselessly for a second or two. “I thought you were... off being happy! And normal. And retired.”

“I tried! Was all set to be Mister Suburbia, man. ...Then Crowley gave me a lead on a couple of demons. And there was this haunting across town. And the freaky-ass shadow thing. There were kids in that neighbourhood, Sammy, what was I supposed to do?”

Sam sat down again, head in his hands. All that time keeping himself away, all that time trying to handle everything on his own so Dean could remain happily oblivious - and Dean had been here all along, as entrenched in danger and the supernatural as ever.

“Your turn, Samantha. You wanna explain the Lazarus routine and the angelic entourage?”

Sam shrugged as he looked up. “I honestly have no-”

“It was our Father,” Castiel insisted. He’d already gravitated to Dean’s side, resuming the invasion into his personal space as if he’d never left. Dean had instinctively shifted to accommodate him. “No other force could possibly have lifted Sam from Lucifer’s cage and returned myself and Gabriel to life.”

Dean nodded. “Okay, I can buy that. God finally pulled his head out of his ass. Terrific. But what’s with the...” He gestured vaguely at the angels, apparently trying to encompass their humanness.

Gabriel, now stretched out in his chair with his legs crossed in front of him, snapped his fingers and pointed at Dean. “That is the other sixty-four dollar question, Deano. And we were rather hoping the knowledgeable Mister Singer over here could help answer it for us.”

Dean frowned. “Hey, I just realised. If you didn’t know I was here... You were coming to see Bobby before you came and got me?!”

All eyes fell upon Sam, who looked off to one side and stayed silent.

Gabriel huffed in exasperation. “What he’s so subtly trying not to say is that-”

“Gabriel!”

“-left up to him, we wouldn’t have come got you at all.”

Dean looked between the three of them sharply, quickly finding confirmation of the fact in Gabriel’s blasé nonchalance, Castiel’s downturned eyes and Sam’s tortured, guilty expression. Suspicion rose in him. “Wait. How long... How long have you all been back...?”

“Going on a month now, isn’t it?”

“Gabriel, I swear to god-”

“Okay, okay! I’m shutting up...”

Dean gaped at them, wounded. “A month?! You’ve been back a month and you didn’t at any point think I’d wanna know?!”

“Dean-”

“What the hell have you been doing for a whole month?”

Sam opened his mouth and then closed it, at a loss. He exchanged glances with Cas and Gabriel, thinking back on the number of little incidents that had transpired in the last few weeks, and realising how suddenly difficult they were to condense into words.

Behind him, Bobby sighed heavily. “I’ll go get a bottle of the good stuff, then. Might as well do this thing properly...”
xxx

“Hey, you think they’re talking about us?”

The two angels stood side by side on Bobby’s porch, looking out over the salvage yard. In the distance, Sam and Dean meandered slowly through the broken, glittering mess of cars, deep in conversation.

Castiel appeared to consider the question seriously for about five seconds, then decided, “No. I believe they’re emotionally reconnecting after such a traumatic incident and prolonged separation.”

Gabriel sighed and cast his younger sibling a pitying glance. “No one ever taught you the concept of ‘gossip’, did they? I despair, Castiel; I truly do. Your education is sadly lacking...”

Castiel frowned at him. “I know what ‘gossip’ is. That said, you asked me a question and I answered with my opinion. Does that not comply with the customary rules of gossiping?”

“Alright, fine. Wanna tell me what you think they are talking about?”

“The weather, Gabriel. I’m quite certain they’re discussing the weather.”

“...Was that sarcasm?!” Delighted, the archangel practically bounced on the spot. “So we are related! I was starting to have my doubts for a minute there.”

Castiel hummed a vague note of agreement.

For a few more minutes they resumed their silent observation of the humans, hearing snatches of Dean’s bright laughter in the crisp winter air, Sam a quieter undercurrent of barely subdued excitement. There’d been shouts, earlier. Arguing. There’d even been a scuffle.

Gabriel suddenly let out an impatient sigh, moving to leave the porch. “I’m going to go ask-”

Castiel swiftly reached out and caught his arm before he got further than the second step. “Leave them.”

Gabriel shook him off, looking affronted. “Why?”

“You’ve become accustomed to having the majority of Sam’s attention focused solely on you, Gabriel, but you must take a step back, now, and allow him time with his brother.”

Affront visibly turned defensive. “Oh yeah? That the excuse you’re using for why you haven’t gone and jumped Winchester yet? We’ve been here a whole three hours, after all...”

Castiel ignored the jibe. “I will talk with Dean later. But for now-”

“Have you always treated them like they’re this precious?! Because I gotta say, Castiel, it’s a miracle they get out of bed in the morning without you there to take their hands and-”

“Listen to me. At least in terms of emotional development, Dean is more than Sam’s brother. He is his parent. I simply think it would be wise to bear that in mind and allow them the appropriate time together without our interference.”

Gabriel squinted at him with something like morbid fascination. “...Wow, you have given this way too much thought.”

Blue eyes cut sternly towards him. “So should you, if you propose to care about Sam at all.”

He blinked, surprised into wordlessness for a good second or two. Then, recovering, he scoffed dismissively. “Who, Gigantor over there? Hey, I like the kid, but-”

Castiel just turned and looked at him, dismissing all arguments with a knowing expression. “Gabriel. I’m not blind. You care for Sam Winchester. In what sense is none of my business, but I see no reason for you to deny it out of hand.”

He scowled and kicked at the porch steps. “Yeah, well. You wouldn’t, would you...” They watched as Sam said something that made Dean throw back his head and laugh. “So - what? We’re just supposed to wait until the family bonding time is over?” Great. And he’d thought this would be the faster route to getting his Grace back...

“Humans are... complex.” It sounded almost apologetic.

“Amen to that.” He looked at Castiel expectantly, but when his brother only blinked curiously back at him, he sighed and added, “Now you’re supposed to say ‘Preach it’.”

Castiel frowned at him in confusion, looking vaguely constipated if you asked Gabriel. He ignored it and tried again.

“Amen to that!”

“...Preach... it?”

“Mm-hm.”

xxx

Dean’s little brother was a moron. A high-strung, ovary-infested, martyrdom-aspiring moron.

It was a shame, really. Dean had done his best, raised him right, exposed him to all sorts of manly influences like Die Hard and Metallica and classic cars. It just hadn’t seemed to take.

But because Dean was the awesome brother, he loved Sam even despite the melodramatic flights of fancy that so often entered his head and got them into trouble. Which was why, upon hearing Sam’s explanation for why he hadn’t seen fit to drop Dean a line and, yanno, update him to the fact that he was back from the dead, Dean had heroically restrained himself to punching Sam in the face just the once.

A month. A fucking month. Dean couldn’t believe they were related sometimes...

They’d moved on from that argument for the moment, however (to be returned to at a later, more inconvenient date, no doubt) and were occupied in updating each other to exactly what had transpired in the other’s absence. For Dean, there wasn’t much of a story to tell (not out loud, anyway). He’d spent the first couple of months shellshocked by the almost-apocalypse and the even greater personal losses, and after that came a violent blur of hunting and alcohol and not much else. Not really something he ever planned to discuss with Sam.

His brother’s stories, though, were proving much more entertaining.

“Gabriel got you guys arrested?! Oh, man, wish I’d been there...”

Sam snorted, half-amused by the memory now that he could view it in retrospect. After all, it wasn’t everybody who could say they’d protected an age-old archangel from the shady looking drunk in the corner.

“Still,” Dean added after a second or two, “least you got angels. I don’t care what crap Gabriel pulls: angels have gotta beat having to hang around here with a demon.”

Sam immediately stopped dead in his tracks at the implication in his brother’s words. “Demon? There was a demon? God, Dean, please tell me you didn’t try to make another deal...”

“Actually I did,” Dean answered blithely, much to Sam’s paralyzing horror. “I made a deal that if Crowley never came within ten feet of the Impala again, I’d stop trying to exorcise him on sight.”

“...Crowley?!” That, at least, helped jolt him back into motion, and he jogged to catch up, aiming an incredulous look at the side of Dean’s head. “What the hell is Crowley still doing here?”

Dean’s expression darkened. Actually, he’d being expending a considerable amount of energy trying to ignore the demon’s comings and goings. It had even worked for a while, too. Bobby wasn’t exactly advertising the fact that he’d suddenly made friends with one of Hell’s finest, and Dean had understandably had more pressing issues on his mind. It did, however, become increasingly difficult to ignore the two emptied scotch glasses that tended to reappear on Bobby’s desk every morning when Dean came downstairs. Or the chessboard that had been set up in the study, its pieces having moved slightly every time Dean happened to check on it. (Since when the hell did Bobby play chess, anyway?) He was even pretty sure that Crowley brought his goddamn hellhound with him sometimes, since Bobby’s dogs had developed an unfortunate habit of hightailing it into the house and refusing to leave for days, and Dean would get chills down his spine whenever he got too close to the kennels during those times. He tended to avoid them altogether, these days. Just in case.

Anyway, it had finally become impossible to ignore Crowley’s unwelcome presence the day the demon had blinked into existence right next to him, heedlessly invading the sanctity of Dean’s alone time in the Impala, and bluntly informed him that his “insipid brooding” was not only getting old, but also beginning to worry “Robert”, since apparently everyone was familiar with his “sad tendency to venture into psychopathic territory” whenever he was “left to dwell too long upon the injustices done against Winchesters.” This, mind, had become a personal problem for Crowley only because it meant Bobby was too distracted to be good company anymore - hence the demon heroically making the time and effort to offer some good worldly advice that essentially boiled down to: “Buck up, kid, because you’re annoying the bloody hell out of everyone.”

Dean had shot him in the leg and told him to stay the hell out of his car in future.

“...Dean?”

He snapped back to attention, wrinkling his nose distastefully in answer to Sam’s question. “Ah, I don’t even know, man. Far as I can figure, he and Bobby have this whole asexual married-couple thing going on. Freakin’ weird...”

Sam raised his eyebrows sharply. “Asexual? I thought Crowley was-”

“Asexual, Sam, I said asexual! Problem with that?!”

Sam held up his hands quickly, more than happy to concede the point.

They walked on, content to enjoy the companionable quiet of old times for just a little while. Sam was the first to break it.

“Hey Dean?”

“S’up?”

“You might wanna talk to Cas at some point.”

“Bout what?”

Sam came to a stop, shoulders hunched guiltily. “I don’t think he’s dealing too well with the whole ‘being human’ thing.”

Dean raised one eyebrow. “Well. He is an angel, Sam,” he pointed out, speaking slowly as though to an idiot. “Course he’s not dealing well with it.”

And it was just that simple, when Dean said it. Sam abruptly felt a surge of relief, because Dean got these kind of things and could fix them. He grinned stupidly, helpless to stop the reaction. “I’m really glad you were here, yanno.”

His brother glowered, nonplussed. “So you’re just springing the chick-flick moments on me now?”

Sam chuckled, ducking his head. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Dean turned his head, peering into the sun. “Hey, uh. About Cas. So you... You think he’s not doing okay?”

Sam thought about it for a moment. “I think he’ll be better, here. You’re the closest thing he’s got to a best friend, yanno? Somehow I don’t think me and Gabriel were really cutting it.”

They turned to look back at the house where both angels stood occupying the porch, apparently making no effort whatsoever to disguise their remarkable resemblance to abandoned puppies.

“Oh man,” Dean muttered. “I told you if you kept feeding them they’d never leave...”

Sam smirked, little-brother smug. “Yeah right. You know you owe me forever for bringing Cas back in one piece.”

Dean scoffed but refrained from comment, instead asking, “So what’s the deal with Gabriel?”

“How do you mean?”

He nodded towards the porch. “Cas isn’t the only one rocking the puppydog-eyes over there. Something you wanna tell me?”

“Like what?” Sam asked too quickly, and Dean recognised that cagey expression.

He groaned. “Ah, come on! Seriously?”

“Dean, it’s not what you think-”

“You actually made friends with that son of a bitch?”

Sam blinked. “...What?” Then, weirdly, something almost like relief flashed across his expression. “Friends! Yes! I mean... Uh, maybe? I guess?”

“I thought you hated him? You do remember he killed me, right? Like, a hundred fucking times!”

Sam shrugged sheepishly, unable to offer much in the way of explanation. What was he supposed to say? Yeah, I realise he’s very probably a sociopath with a sex problem, and as a matter of fact I do have this vague recollection of the number of times he’s epically screwed us. He’s self-centred and childish and kind of an asshole, I know - but since he mastered using the microwave, he makes awesome popcorn. Seriously. You’d love it.

Yeah. That’d go over just peachy...

Dean pointed at him. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you, Sammy.” With that, he turned and started walking back towards the house, calling over his shoulder, “Anyway, come on. I wanna go traumatise Crowley by introducing him to an archangel.”

xxx

“Ha, I just realised,” the demon chortled. “It’s like the setup to a supremely bad joke: A Fallen angel, a pagan god, and the newly risen dead walk into a bar...”

“Can you not make me sound like some kind of zombie, please?”

“It’s just ‘bitch, bitch, bitch’ with you, isn’t it?”

Such was the conversation that saw in the New Year that night, which was really just typical.

Bobby had disappeared upstairs about half an hour ago, claiming the need to be well rested if he was going to be dealing with a full house of idjits. The rest of them had taken over his living room, no one quite ready to surrender to sleep just yet. Sam sat cross-legged on the floor, his back to a couch occupied by Cas and Gabriel. Dean handed him a beer as he wandered past, going to sprawl himself in the armchair near Crowley, who stood lounging in the doorway like he was bored out of his mind - an effect ruined only by the fact that he hadn’t left yet.

As it turned out, Gabriel and Crowley hadn’t so much traumatised each other as gotten along like a house on fire (with all the ominous, destructive potential which that simile implied, in Sam’s opinion).

“I know you’ve been ‘slumming it’ for a while now,” he’d muttered scathingly to the archangel a little earlier, after watching him and Crowley make nice for the best part of an hour, “but surely even you have some standards left. You know he’s a demon, right?”

Gabriel had actually looked offended. “Hey, I’ve been accused of a lot of things in my time - most of them, admittedly, kinda true - but I am not a racist!”

“Hear, hear,” Crowley had said, raising the glass of scotch he seemed to have permanently at hand and drinking a mocking toast.

Exasperated, Sam had given up and left them to it.

Currently, however, the archangel had returned to his favoured means of entertainment: irritating Sam. He’d manoeuvred himself to be directly at Sam’s back, where he could easily reach out and tug at strands of his hair, or run a nail down his spine to send a jolt of ticklishness right through him. Twice Sam had elbowed him in the shin in retaliation, and he was starting to suspect he should really just move if he wanted to put a stop to it.

He didn’t, though. God knew why.

From the other end of the couch, Castiel watched these exchanges with puzzlement. He knew his brother was fond of Sam, in his own way, but for the life of him he couldn’t understand the way in which Gabriel chose to express that fondness. He was almost completely certain it followed no human or angelic custom.

But then, he supposed, no matter what he thought of Gabriel’s unorthodox methods, at least his brother was doing something; acting on what he wanted; decisive in a way that had never come naturally to Castiel. He chanced a look across at Dean, who was occupied in glaring hatefully up at Crowley, and he thought about the conversation he’d shared with Gabriel not so long ago, about what he would say to the human who had once been his charge if he ever saw him again.

For love is strong as death, he’d said back then. He had yet to say it here and now; and, truthfully, he hadn’t the first idea of how he was going to go about it.

If he was going to go about it.

“Why are you even here, anyway?” Dean suddenly snapped, apparently in response to something Crowley had just said to him.

The demon shrugged elegantly. “I’m an invited guest, as I’m sure you remember.”

“More like ‘unwanted pest’...”

“You wound me, truly.”

“Yeah, shut the hell up, Crowley.”

“Make me, darling.”

Sam smiled slightly as he listened to them, realising that the back and forth between the two had something almost habitual about it, like sniping at each other had become par for the course these days. There was hostility there, certainly - but not the kind likely to make Dean go for the Colt, or Crowley to use powers.

Unbidden, he remembered the key role that the demon had played in helping them stop the apocalypse, and the morbidly amusing thought occurred to him that, somehow or other, Crowley had gone and gotten himself absorbed into Team Free Will.

A socked foot suddenly prodded him in the kidney, painful, and he instinctively reached behind himself to grab Gabriel’s ankle and hold him still. Muscles and tendons twitched in protest beneath his fingers. He ignored it, wordless. Didn’t even turn around, but went on watching Dean and Crowley bicker as if nothing had happened. After a minute or so, Gabriel stopped trying to pull away and slumped in defeat. Really, that should have been his cue to let go. He did think about it. Couldn’t really figure out what made him flex his fingers instead, holding on just this side of too tight. Behind him, Gabriel froze. Sam wondered vaguely what the fuck had happened to his resolve not to send out the wrong signals.

Voices escalated around them as his brother’s sniping turned into an actual argument, and Castiel rose from the couch to go join him. It occurred to Sam that no one was paying any attention to them. Apparently it occurred to Gabriel, too, because the archangel leaned forward into his personal space, breath breezing past his ear as he hissed, “Yanno, I’m starting to suspect you have something of a fetish, Sammy.”

Sam started to turn his head, then realised that would put them face-to-face and hastily suspended the motion. He swallowed awkwardly and managed to rasp, “...You’re really annoying.”

Gabriel huffed surprised laughter against the back of his neck, said quietly, “You like it.” He brought a hand up, fingers sliding themselves proprietarily into Sam’s hair; certainly no comforting gesture this time.

Sam half-heartedly tried to twist his head away. “Don’t.” Someone was going to turn and see them any second now, and it’d be difficult to convince anyone that the weirdly intimate position was actually just a comparatively harmless case of hair-pulling.

(He wished he could find more of a reason to object than that. Anything, really. Anything at all.)

Gabriel smirked, so close now that Sam could feel the curve of it against his skin. “It’s just gone New Year. I thought humans had that tradition of getting laid at midnight?”

A sharp shock of amusement made him laugh out loud at that. It broke the spell. He turned around, dislodging Gabriel’s hold on him, and pinned the archangel with a disbelieving look. “Actually, we have that tradition of just kissing at midnight. Also, we’ve missed midnight by nearly two hours. Also, I’m not going to kiss you, if that’s what you’re hinting at - midnight or any other time.”

Gabriel pouted, slouching back into the couch cushions with folded arms. “Jeez, Sam, way to suck the fun out of one little joke.”

“Oh come off it.” But he was grinning, helplessly.

xxx

They gave in and called it a night some time around three in the morning. Crowley blinked out to go steal souls or drown kittens or whatever it was he did instead of sleeping, and everyone else headed for bed.

Dean was sharing his usual room with Sam, but on his way upstairs he hesitated outside the newly designated angels’ room. After a second or two he knocked and poked his head inside, momentarily taken aback by the sight of Castiel standing there clad in pyjamas that might once have been Sam’s. He was busy folding the clothes he’d been wearing earlier, laying them neatly on a chair. He glanced over his shoulder at Dean’s entrance, blue eyes smiling even though his mouth didn’t move.

“Dean.”

“Hey. Where’s Gabriel?”

“I believe he’s saying goodnight to Sam.” Castiel moved to sit on the edge of the bed, offering a wry tilt of his head. “By which I mean he’s probably occupied in accosting your brother with his unique interpretation of friendship.”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “...Good to know.”

“Did you want him for something?”

“Gabriel? God no.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and shuffled a few steps further into the room. “Just thought I’d... yanno. Check in on you.” They stared at each other silently for a while, until Dean coughed and prompted, “So you’re okay then?”

“Yes, actually,” came the vaguely surprised answer, as if Castiel was only just realising it himself. “Today... did not turn out as expected. It was a pleasant surprise.”

“Understatement.” He dropped down onto the bed next to Cas, feeling the last residual tension drain from him. The whole day had seemed surreal, quite literally too good to be true; and, weirdly, it was only now, sitting next to a human Castiel with his oversized pyjamas, that anything seemed even remotely real.

“What about you?” Castiel asked quietly, turning to face him. “Are you alright?”

And for a moment, Dean actually considered handing in all his male credentials once and for all and just telling Cas how much he’d fucking missed him. He found himself thinking wildly about attempting to describe what it had been like, trying to grieve both Sam and Cas at the same time; how he’d lost his mind for a little while back there; how it felt like a goddamn miracle now that they were both back, unharmed and relatively unchanged; and how, in the deep dark part of his mind that could never quite bring itself to accept that sometimes good things happened, he was fucking terrified there’d be some kind of catch.

It blindsided him, how suddenly strong the urge to confess was. In that split second, he wanted to do crazy things, stupid things - like admit that the unmitigated disaster with Lisa hadn’t just been because of the hunting thing, but also because he’d said the wrong name at the wrong time once or twice too often. He wanted to go get one of his own T-shirts from the closet, just so Cas would have that to sleep in rather than clothing that belonged to anyone else but Dean. He wanted to do something desperate, and obvious, and honest.

But, ultimately, Dean was still a Winchester - and every damn one of them was about as emotionally articulate as a wall.

So he settled for clapping the angel brusquely on the shoulder as he rose to his feet (and if his hand lingered longer than a purely casual gesture strictly should, then that was all he allowed himself). “Glad you’re back, Cas. Seriously. Things... weren’t the same without you.”

Castiel gazed up at him solemnly, hesitating, like he was about to say something in return.

“What’s up?”

“Dean, I...”

But he stopped, looking away, and Dean’s stomach dropped with irrational fear, because Cas never broke eye contact first - or at all, if given the option. He ducked down, trying to get it back. “Hey, c’mon, what’s wrong?”

Castiel visibly recovered himself, spine straightening and eyes returning to Dean’s as though it were inevitable. He offered the smallest twitch of a smile. “Nothing. I apologise. I’m in need of sleep, I suppose.”

Mollified, Dean nodded sympathetically. “Not used to all the human bodily needs yet?”

“Hunger, in particular, is proving most pervasive.”

Dean grinned. “Tell you what, I’ll cook you breakfast in the morning. Full spread. Guarantee you won’t be hungry for a week after.”

“I’d like that, Dean. Thank you.”

He shrugged dismissively, like it was nothing; like the last time he’d done as much wasn’t back when Sam was just a kid. With that, he turned and ambled back into the hallway, leaning for a moment longer on the doorframe. “Night, Cas.”

“Goodnight.”

And still he hovered. He might have said something more, perhaps; something equally trivial or maybe something shattering - but Gabriel chose that moment to barge past him with an elbow to the ribs. “Stop defiling my brother, Winchester. Or if you’re going to insist on it, take him to your own damn room. Feel free to send Sammy right on in here, if you’re looking for privacy.”

Dean sneered at him, infuriated by the interruption. “Yeah, you’re delusional if you think I’m leaving you alone with Sam any longer than necessary.”

Gabriel held out his arms innocently, but Dean didn’t wait for a response, slamming the door shut in hopes of getting the last word in.

Gabriel’s muffled voice was still audible, however, calling shrilly after him, “Oh come on! I’d totally give you my blessing to bang my little brother if you gave me yours!”

“Fuck you, Gabriel!” he yelled back at the top of his voice, no doubt waking everyone in the house, before proceeding to stomp off down the hall. He got halfway to his own room before the archangel’s words finally registered. “Wait. What?”

Annoyingly, Gabriel wouldn’t open the door again when he went back to pound on it, and Sam was conveniently, stubbornly asleep.

Chapter 5