FIC: A Name to Last for All Eternity 1/2

[wolfling]

Gabriel had never expected to be brought back to life by his Dad, but if he had, he never would have predicted it would be like this.... this emptiness. No pronouncements or punishments, or new orders, not even a face to face. Just him blinking back into existence in the same place where it had all ended, an empty ballroom in an abandoned hotel.

And really, he should be relieved about that, happy even. His life, such as it was, didn't have to change. He could continue doing what he'd been doing for milennia, roaming the Earth and playing the role of trickster and being anything but an archangel and God's Messenger. But somehow, after everything that had happened, that didn't hold the same appeal it had before.

Not that he wanted to go back to Heaven either. He'd changed in the time he'd been away and even if things were better now than they had been when he left, he knew it wouldn't be a good fit anymore. The fact that he hadn't been given an imperative to return made him think that Dad knew that and was merciful enough not to force it.

But that left Gabriel at something of a loss. He certainly wasn't the good archangel any more, and he couldn't be a trickster any more, not the way he had been. What he was now, what he should do... he didn't know, and wasn't sure how to figure out what the answer should be.

It was the kind of deep philosophical question that he always hated dwelling on. That much at least hadn't changed. So he did his best to ignore it.

It was simpler to concentrate on other things, like the fact that the impending apocalypse wasn't so impending anymore. It hadn't taken much effort to find out at least the broad strokes of what happened -- the entire supernatural world -- demons, angels, gods and others -- were all buzzing about it. The Winchesters had managed to not only open Lucifer's cage again -- and Gabriel would take some of the credit for that, given it had been his intel that had put them onto that plan -- but they'd manage to shove not only Luci, but Michael's ass into it.

Sam had been locked in with them as well, which had been one hell of a sacrifice to make, but it seemed Dad was really working that old resurrection muscle lately because He'd yanked Sam back out. Gabriel didn't even need to hear that through the grapevine, that piece of knowledge he'd just had when he'd awakened, and he wasn't looking too closely at the possible reasons for that either.

The grapevine did provide the fact that Sam had hooked back up with his brother and that the two Winchesters were on the road again hunting things that go bump in the night. For all intents and purposes, from an outside view at least, things were back to how they had been before, as if the Apocalypse had never threatened.

Must be nice, Gabriel grumbled. Here he was, an almost innocent bystander, and the Apocalypse, aside from killing him, left him with a complete identity crisis. While the human who arguably started -- and ended, he admitted grudgingly -- the whole thing just went back to his life, the whole thing a memory growing smaller in the rear view mirror. Stupid humans. Stupid Winchesters.

Still, Gabriel found himself wondering just how Sam had managed all that and couldn't help but want to check it out up close. He wasn't quite ready to try and track the Winchesters down in person -- the last couple of meetings had definitely left him worse for wear and he could do without a repeat of that. But when you had the powers of an archangel cum trickster there were ways and ways of checking people out. Gabriel decided he'd take the most direct one open to him -- he'd go eavesdrop on Sam's dreams.

The sigils that little brother Castiel had so thoughtfully carved on the Winchesters' ribs made them a bit harder to track down, but with patience and skill, one could manage it in the dreamworld. It took Gabriel maybe a night or two to finally do it -- which he was firmly blaming on the Winchesters' penchant to skip pesky things like sleep when off being do-gooder hunters -- but he did finally find that thread of sleeping Sam awareness and follow it back to his dreams.

And immediately discovered that maybe Sam wasn't exactly as over the apocalypse as Gabriel had thought he was.

Sam's dreams were, Gabriel was pretty certain, not really dreams so much as memories. He knew enough about Lucifer's punishment to recognize what had to be his brother's cage -- two of his brothers now. And more than that, he was intimately familiar with both Lucifer and Michael and the way they fought, ignoring any and all collateral damage they may cause while doing so. What Sam was dreaming about was exactly what would happen if you locked the two of them in a small confined space together with no way out.

Gabriel's first reaction was to flinch back, to want to disconnect and look away, to pretend that he hadn't just glimpsed the price Sam Winchester had paid to cheat destiny and stop the apocalypse. He didn't want to think about his brothers -- whom he still loved, even after everything -- stuck down there ripping each other apart. It was everything he didn't want to think about all laid out in front of him in technicolor and surround sound.

Still. He'd made a decision back when he'd confronted Lucifer. He was done being a coward and running from what scared him. So even though every fiber of his being cried out for him to flee and leave these nightmare memories to Sam alone, he didn't.

But he found he couldn't just sit back and watch either. It was just... way too much. Without thinking about it, Gabriel went from observer to participant, stepping into the dream and changing setting around him as he did so. He banished the visions of hell and replaced it with something less trauma inducing.

That was all he intended to do, and more than he had planned when he started out, just change the dream enough to give Sam a respite. But then something happened. Either he didn't move fast enough or being Lucifer's vessel had made Sam more aware of when archangels were messing about in his head, but unerringly Sam turned and looked right at Gabriel.

"What are you doing here?" he asked point blank.

And resolution to stand his ground or not, Gabriel found his nerve wasn't quite up to answering that question and he turned and fled.

*****

Sam expected the nightmares. One didn't get possessed by the devil and go to hell and come out the other side without expecting a few bumps along the emotional road, and really, if all he had to deal with now was a bunch of bad dreams and restless nights, he considered himself getting off really easy.

They came with amazing regularity, those nocturnal reminders of what things had been like down below, but Sam bore them with as much silent fortitude as he could manage. After all, at least now he only experienced them a few hours at a time when he slept, which was a damn sight better than still being locked in the cage like he could have been.

Should have been, even. He wasn't sure what -- or who -- had pulled him out and that worried him sometimes, but he wasn't about to look a gift miracle in the mouth. So he spent his days getting on with his life, hunting with his brother and his brother's angel, and was grateful of the chance to do so. If his sleeping hours was less than pleasant, well, things could be worse.

The dreams were remarkably similar every night, inspired by the memories of what it had been like down below, but always just different enough to keep them from becoming predictable. There was fire and ice, and pain and screaming and an unending darkness interrupted by flashes of light so bright it threatened to vaporize what was left of Sam. And that was when Lucifer and Michael's attention was focused on each other. When they remembered him, it was a million times worse.

Every night was another visit back, another taste of what he had somehow escaped. Every night until the one night it wasn't.

Sam fell asleep that night as usual, with the usual effort of will needed to hold himself in the bed and relax enough to drift off. And the dream started off much the same as it always had, with him in the cage and Michael and Lucifer tearing at each other with light and ice.

But then it changed. He went from unbearable light to a place so dark, the lack of light was almost a physical presence pressing down on him. He could hear someone moving about and braced himself, wondering what form this new torture would take.

There was a low rumble, like a distant truck going by, or a god's deep laughter. Thunder, Sam realized. And that was new as well -- there was no weather in the cage, nothing but the anger of two archangels being vented against each other.

But there it was again, another low rumble, this time sounding closer. And as if to confirm it, there was a few seconds later a brief flash of lightning -- sharp and bright, but not painful like the bursts of light that came off Lucifer and Michael. In fact, come to think about it, he couldn't really sense their presence at all. Maybe for once, the dream letting him out of the cage?

Another flash and Sam blinked, managing to get an impression of his surroundings. It wasn't the cage, wasn't anything that looked like hell at all.

It was a open field somewhere, with a myriad of stars in the sky above -- which was totally at odds with the lightning flashes, but dreams were like that sometime. It was quiet, peaceful, and full of a type of beauty and peace that Sam had known very little of in his life.

For a long moment he just stood where he was, and breathed in the night air, relishing the chance to do so, relishing any dream time where he wasn't back in Hell.

But as peaceful as it was, there was something.... A prickling at the back of Sam's neck, the type of feeling he only got when he was being watched. There was somebody -- something out there just beyond his ability to see.

With everything that he'd been through, the idea of someone actually messing around in his dreams was not one that Sam would tolerate at all. He reached out with all his senses and searched the night around him, until he thought he felt....

He spun around, eyes scanning the area of the field where the feeling was coming from. He caught at first just a glimpse of a slight figure, a shadow among shadows, but in the next flash of light he saw exactly who it was and froze in shock. Gabriel.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

Sam thought he caught a flash of alarm pass over Gabriel's face and then in the next breath he was gone, and Sam was opening his eyes to stare at the cracked ceiling in his motel room instead.

He laid there for several long moments, trying to figure it out.

That was Gabriel. Or at least it had looked like Gabriel. But the archangel was supposed to be dead, killed by Lucifer when he finally decided which side he was on.

Of course 'supposed to be dead' could be said about practically everyone Sam knew, up to and including himself so that wasn't really the mitigating factor it should've been. Beyond that, Gabriel had a history of faking his death, so it was always possible he had never been dead in the first place.

Still, whether he'd been dead and come back or had been just pretending that left the sixty-four thousand dollar question -- why the hell was Gabriel poking around in Sam's head in the first place?

If Gabriel tried it again, Sam was determined to get an answer.

****

Gabriel really wasn't used to regret. Or at least not this kind. The kind where it was all on him and his actions. But ever since he'd pulled back -- or let's be honest here, fleed like a fleeing thing -- from Sam's dream, he'd been dealing with the unaccustomed feeling.

He hated that so soon after resolving to not be a coward anymore he'd turned tail and ran instead of dealing with something. More than that, he hated why he'd ran. There was a good deal of shame to go along with that regret. He'd been practically jealous of Sam and how well he seemed to be coping with living in a post Apocalyptic world. Enough that he'd thought more than a few less than pretty thoughts about it. Then to see exactly what it was that Sam was dealing with, the horrors Sam seemed to just accept that he had to experience, it definitely was enough to shame him.

At least Gabriel had the reassurance that he had changed the dream when he had seen what Sam was going through, but that was all the more reason why he shouldn't have run away. He still wasn't sure exactly why he'd ran, other than what Sam had gone through and what he'd accomplished affected Gabriel in ways he wasn't sure he was up to facing quite yet. And, a tiny voice inside of him added though he tried his best to ignore it, that there was something about Sam himself that made him want to get closer than was probably wise.

If he was smart, he'd probably leave well enough alone and walk away from it all now. There was a whole world out there, he didn't have to keep poking his nose where the Winchesters were. But facing that whole world was at least as daunting a prospect. And hell, Gabriel hadn't made the smart choice, the safe choice, for a very long time. Why should he start now?

So it was only a few nights later that he once again stretched his awareness out until he found Sam's subconscious mind and slipped inside.

The dream Sam was immersed in looked at first glance the same as it had before -- the cage and Michael and Lucifer fighting like overgrown toddlers throwing a tantrum, and Sam caught in the crossfire. But there was subtle differences. Sam wasn't entirely folded up on himself protectively as if to shut everything out like he'd been last time. He was still curled into as small a target as possible but his head was exposed, as if he was watching for something.

Or someone. Like Gabriel.

No sooner had Gabriel even thought that than Sam's gaze seemed to focus on him. It was against all that logic and sense said was even possible if Gabriel didn't actually manifest in the dream, but Gabriel didn't doubt that he was actually being perceived, even before Sam gave a ghost of a smile that was at least half grimace and muttered, "Knew you'd be back."

Busted before he could decide whether he wanted to have a conversation or not, Gabriel gave in as gracefully as he could manage. He sighed and snapped his fingers, changing their dream locale to a moonlit beach.

Sam stayed curled up for a moment, as if leery to let go of his protective position, but slowly he stretched out and pulled himself up to his full height. "Guess I should say thanks for that," he said, eying Gabriel with a wary curiosity.

"No way we could make ourselves heard over Dumb and Dumber's battle royale down there," he said, turning to face Sam fully.

Another ghost of a smile touched Sam's lips. "Point." He turned and began walking down the beach, hands in his pockets. With nothing better to do, Gabriel followed, falling into step at his side.

"So you're not dead, huh?" Sam asked, after a moment's silence.

"Was," Gabriel admitted. "For real. But..." He shrugged. "I got better." He found himself strangely reluctant to go into details.

"Yeah, a lot of that seemed to be going around." Sam glanced sideways at him. "Did God....?"

"I think so. Kinda felt like him. But if it was, he didn't stick around to say hi." And he wasn't about to admit how much that hurt. Castiel wasn't the only angel who would like to talk to Dad. Instead, Gabriel tried to turn the spotlight back on his companion, even though he knew the answer. "You?"

Sam echoed Gabriel's earlier shrug. "I guess. Don't know. Whoever -- or whatever -- sprung me didn't leave a calling card."

"Then that definitely sounds like Dad." Gabriel snorted. "For an all powerful being he kinda sucks at communication. And considering I was his Messenger, I should know."

"Is that why you're here?" Sam asked, stopping and turning to face Gabriel. "To deliver a message?"

Gabriel snorted again. "Hardly. I gave up that gig a long time ago, kid."

He already had a good idea what Sam's next question was going to be and he wasn't proven wrong. "So... why are you here then? Not that I'm not grateful for the change of scenery, but why are you wandering around inside my dreams?"

Gabriel sighed, shoved his hands in his pockets and looked out at the ocean. "That's the question, isn't it?" He glanced over his shoulder at Sam. "Would you believe me if I told you I really don't know?"

"Probably not," Sam admitted.

"Tough. 'Cause that's the answer." He waited for Sam to argue with him, to demand he explain himself, but the kid just stayed quiet. When Gabriel glanced up at him again, he found the human studying him intently. "What?" he demanded.

Sam shrugged. "If you're not going to tell me, I'm going to have to figure it out for myself."

"Oh for- Look, it's not that I'm not telling you. It's that there's nothing to tell! It was a whim, okay? I heard you had got sprung and were back to the whole do gooder hunting gig with your brother, but there weren't any details in the story and I'm a sucker for details. Figured I'd come, take a peek and see if I can get a clearer picture. That's all. No deep dark secret or destiny or anything. So will you please stop looking at me like that?"

Sam didn't stop. He just added a raised eyebrow. "So you just wanted to see what was happening in my head? Nothing more?"

Gabriel barely kept from flinging his arms out in a gesture of exasperation. "Didn't I just say that? What, did your brain suddenly stop understanding English or something?"

"If all you wanted to do was see what was going on, why did you yank me out of the nightmare? And why did you come back?"

Gabriel sputtered, but realized he didn't have any easy answers to that. "There's times I really hate you, y'know that?"

The faint smile Sam gave him didn't really lessen that feeling. "No you don't. Just answer the questions."

Letting out an exasperated sigh, Gabriel ran a hand through his hair in frustration. He just had to come back, didn't he? Couldn't leave well enough alone. No he had to suck it up and prove that he didn't run from things any more. "I don't know, okay?" he told Sam testily. "I mean, it would've been cruel of a level that's beyond me to just leave you there when I could change it with a snap. It was a momentary burst of empathy and compassion, okay? Even I get them some times. Don't let it go to your head."

Sam gave him a slight nod in acknowledgment. "Okay. I guess that explains last time. But you still haven't told me why you came back."

"I was bored?" Gabriel tried hopefully.

Sam didn't even deign to reply to that, just continued staring at Gabriel, now with a raised eyebrow.

Gabriel sighed again. "Look, I really don't know. I mean... okay, last time, when you spotted me, I ran. Like I've been doing for milennia whenever anything got too close or too much for me to handle. Except that one time."

"When you stood up to Lucifer," Sam murmured softly.

"Yeah," Gabriel acknowledged. "Fat lot of good it did me. Got me a serious case of the deads. But still... it felt good to not run. And, really, after everything, I'd like to think I'm done with running." He felt his mouth curl up into a half smirk. "At least for anything short of impending certain death."

"So you came back," Sam said slowly, "because you didn't want to run away."

"Basically, yeah," Gabriel said.

"Huh," Sam said mostly to himself. He stared at Gabriel as if trying to figure him out.

After a moment, Gabriel started to find the silence unnerving. "Good enough answer for you, kid?"

"For why you came back, yeah," Sam replied. "Course, you didn't tell me why you ran in the first place."

"You startled me, okay?" Gabriel replied grumpily. "I don't like things happening that I can't predict. And being dead can make a guy a little jumpy. I should think you'd understand that."

"Point," Sam said again. He fell silent again and for a few brief moments, both of them just looked out at the waves crashing against the shore. Gabriel was actually starting to relax and think it might not have been such a horrible idea to come back.

"I shouldn't have been able to sense you, should I?" Sam asked after a while. His voice was soft and conversational and didn't really disturb the peace that had descended on them both.

"Nope," Gabriel replied. "I'm really good at hiding -- been doing it against all comers for a very very long time." He turned his head just enough to make out Sam's profile in the moonlight. "But then again, you Winchesters seem to have made it your vocation to do things you're not supposed to. Starting with stopping the Apocalypse."

"We couldn't have done that without the info you gave us," Sam said. "So thank you for that."

"I may have provided the intel, but you're the one who did a Greg Louganis into Hell. I think you win for sacrifices here." It was still boggling Gabriel's mind a little that Sam had actually been able to do that.

Sam turned to fully face him again, searching his face for... Gabriel didn't know what. "I think we're pretty even on the sacrifice scale," he finally said. "What with the dying thing and all."

Yeah, there was that. "If you insist." They lapsed back into silence, this time lasting for what felt like a couple of hours.

Finally Gabriel stirred, sensing that Sam's sleep with lightening. "Think it's time I blow this popsicle stand, and let you wake up," he said. "Dean-o would totally blow a gasket if you start doing your best sleeping beauty imitation."

"Okay," Sam said, though he sounded oddly reluctant.

Gabriel nodded, raising a hand to snap himself away. "Wait!" Sam called out, reaching out a hand as if to stop him. When Gabriel paused he continued in a rush, "Are you going to come back?"

"You want me to?" Gabriel asked, surprised at the question.

"Yeah," Sam replied, looking a little uncomfortable at the admission. "I mean, I wouldn't mind if you dropped in again. This... well, it's a nice change from the usual. And not just because it's not Hell."

That last clarification made Gabriel smile. "Wouldn't you prefer a band of scantily clad dancing girls or something to me?" he asked.

"No, that would be Dean's idea of a good dream," Sam said, deadpan, but with a glint of humor in his eyes. "Really, I liked this. Even if all we really did was sit and watch the waves. So come back... please?"

Gabriel had enjoyed it too, more than he was going to admit. And now that he had an invite... "Well, since you said please," he drawled with an easy smirk. "Be seeing you around, kiddo. Promise." And with that he snapped himself away.

*****

"So I told him it was just because I wasn't having wall to wall nightmares any more and he threatened to kick my ass to Hell and back if I'm not telling him the truth. Then told me it was my turn to pick up dinner and not to stint on the bacon or onions," Sam said to Gabriel, relating the whole conversation he'd had with his brother earlier, before he'd fallen asleep for the night. It had been a little awkward, and Sam really hadn't known what to say, but such were the things Winchester bonding moments were made out of.

Gabriel made a disgusted face. "Seriously, the amount of onions Dean-o puts on everything, he's lucky Castiel doesn't actually need to breathe." They were sitting tonight in the Café Américain from the movie Casablanca. It was an impressive replica from what Sam could remember about the movie. The kicker being that it -- and they themselves -- were even in black and white.

"Yeah, that's totally venturing into things I do not need to know about what my brother does when he's alone with his angel," Sam said primly. Sometimes the fact that Gabriel did not seem to know the meaning of Too Much Information made for conversations even more awkward than Winchester bonding time. "But really, that's all you've got to say?"

"What do you want me to say, Sam?" Gabriel asked, pouring them both a glass of what looked like very old, very expensive scotch. "I get why you're not telling Dean about these little tete a tetes. And really, if you're looking for someone to pass judgment on you for lying to your brother, you're looking at the wrong archangel. I've given up Judgment for lent."

"It won't be Lent for another six months," Sam pointed out.

Gabriel grinned. "Yeah, but it sounds better than saying I'm giving something up for Tuesday, don't you think?"

Sam rolled his eyes and took the glass of scotch Gabriel held out to him. "I probably should tell him," he said after taking a sip. It tasted as good as it looked like it would, dream scotch was like that. "We're not doing anything wrong after all."

"Then why don't you?" Gabriel asked, looking at him over the top of his own glass.

Sam thought about it, trying to sort out his feelings. He could clearly picture Dean's reaction, all scoffing disbelief, and almost certainly some anger. Dean never took well to being left out of the loop. Given some of the things that had happened in the past, Sam couldn't really blame him for that. And generally he did calm down again if you gave him enough time.

But the part Sam couldn't picture was his part. What he would say, how he would describe this.... whatever it was with Gabriel. And with that, came the realization why he was still reluctant to talk to his brother about it.

"What are we doing here, Gabriel?" he asked.

Gabriel frowned. "Talking about your family problems over a scotch?" he suggested.

Sam shook his head. "No, I mean generally. You keep coming and hanging out in my dreams. And I keep letting you. Why? It's not exactly normal..."

"I would've thought you'd have given up on normal a while back," Gabriel said with a snort.

He had a point, Sam admitted to himself. "Okay, granted, we're both probably poster boys for abnormal, but even for us.... Why are we doing this, Gabriel?"

If anything Gabriel's frown got deeper. "Do we have to have some kind of reason? Can't we be doing it just because? Like Mohammad climbing the mountain because the bear was there?"

"That's not really why though, is it?" Sam said, with quiet determination. A part of him was whispering to stop pushing and just let the whole issue rest. And yeah, pushing might be risking something that he had begun to value an awful lot, but he'd learned long ago that letting things just slide tended to make them blow up in his face later. So pushing it was.

"I really don't know, Sam," Gabriel said with a heavy sigh. "I like it -- hanging out with you here, talking, showing you some of the things I've seen. And I thought you were liking it too."

"I am," Sam said quickly, reaching over to lay a reassuring hand on Gabriel's arm. "Really. You did catch the part that I've been liking it so much that I'm sleeping more just to do it, right?"

That got him a ghost of a smile. "Yeah, you've turned into a regular narcoleptic," Gabriel teased.

"Not quite that bad or Dean wouldn't have let me brush him off with the non-answer I gave him," Sam said, though he admitted to himself he might have been starting to edge in that direction if he hadn't felt such a responsibility to Dean and their hunting.

"So if you like it and I like it, why do we need to poke at it?" Gabriel sounded almost plaintive and it made Sam sigh softly.

"Because if I can't explain what's going on to myself, how am ever going to be able to explain it to Dean or anybody else?"

Gabriel drained his glass and snapped it full again, raising it to look at the light through the liquid. "That means a lot to you?" he finally asked. "To be able to tell Dean about this?"

Sam shrugged. "I don't like hiding things that are important to me. Not from him. It always seems to end badly when I do."

Gabriel's gaze had slid back to Sam's face. "You think this -- us hanging out -- is important?"

"It feels like it, yeah," he replied nodding. "I just... I can't untangle what it is enough to talk about it."
"It's a... respite," Gabriel offered after a moment. "With everything that's happened, everything we've been through, this is a break from all of it. A chance to catch our figurative breaths. Rest and recharge."

Sam rolled that over in his mind. It felt... well it felt right, but not entirely. "I guess," he said grudgingly. "But..."

"But?"

"Is that all? Is this just some kind of... of vacation from reality to you?"

Gabriel gave him a quick fleeting smirk. "Reality's always merely a suggestion when you're a trickster."

"But you're not," Sam replied, leaning forward towards Gabriel and putting his arms on the table. "You're an angel. You just pretended to be a trickster."

"True." Gabriel took another long drink, then admitted quietly, "Not sure if I'm an angel anymore either."

Sam frowned. "What?"

"Nothing." Gabriel waved it away with a lazy hand. "Too much scotch and thinking about the nature of reality. Gets me in trouble every time. I'd much rather just go with the flow. Until certain large humans decide to go all navel gazing on me."

There was definitely something deep happening under the surface there, something that Sam was aware his questions was disturbing. "Is that your way of asking if we can change the subject?" he asked, willing to let it drop for now. He would have to untangle his own issues before he'd really be capable of helping Gabriel with his.

That got him another smirk, only a little forced. "You know, you really are smarter than your average bear."

"If I'm Yogi, does that make you Ranger Smith?" Sam asked raising an eyebrow.

"Nah," Gabriel said, standing up and going over to the bar to grab another bottle of scotch. "Look around you. I'm Rick Blaine. And you're my loyal friend and piano player."

Of course. Sam rolled his eyes. "I don't play the piano."

"It's a dream, Sam. You could tap dance on the ceiling if you wanted to. Piano playing? That's a snap." He snapped his fingers along with the last word and Sam suddenly found himself seated in front of the piano in the corner of the room.

Sam could so see where this was going. "You're going to say it, aren't you?" he groaned.

Gabriel's grin turned supernova bright. "Course I am." He put on a really bad imitation of Humphrey Bogart and said, "Play it again, Sam!"

*****

Continued in Part 2