Fic - Crossing the Rubicon
Title: Crossing the Rubicon - Part Four
Author: Lady Eternal
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Gabriel
Word Count: 3,280 - this part
Spoilers: If you’ve watched all of Season Five, none. Specific spoilers for episode 5x18.
Warnings: possible abuse of expository devices, rough sex, angst, canon minor character death, OMCs
Disclaimer: If I owned Supernatural, certain events would NEVER have happened and there would be unabashed pr0n. I own little more than a tabby that gets destructive when he feels ignored and am only playing with this world for my own amusement and the free entertainment of others.
Author’s Note: Angelic Mates ‘verse version of Point of No Return. This fic has been circling around my WiP folder for a while, and it’s finally where I want it. Thanks for that in no short supply go to my beta, secondplatypus, who is an unconquerable soul. Hope you all enjoy.
Feedback is adored, so if you like the fic, please comment! And the more details the better; I love knowing what people like about my work.
Part One ~ Part Two ~ Part Three
~ooooOOOoooo~
Adam woke to the sound of frantic shouting as a metal door was dragged open. A glance around the room showed not Dean, but a man in a tan trench coat seated at a desk across the room. He remembered the man’s presence from the field where he’d been resurrected; he was an angel. Moments later, the face registered. Castiel… he’s the angel that helped Dean get away from Michael once before… the one that he’s mated to… Sitting up slowly, Adam’s instincts as a healer began to kick in. Something about the angel seemed so… sad…
“Cas!” Sam burst through the door, panic written across his face. “I can’t sense Dean; he’s not in the house or the yard. Is he okay? Where is he?”
Castiel looked up and Sam faltered a step back. There was a hollow expression in those lapis eyes; raw pain ripped up out of the angel across the bond that staggered Sam where he stood. “He is shielding, Sam. Not even I can sense Dean so long as he is keeping us out.”
Sam stared, gape-mouthed; an angel Adam didn’t know stepped past him, eyes burning amber fire. “How in the Seven Hells did he figure out how to shield that well on his own? And why did you allow it?”
Adam watched Castiel’s eyes darken with anger. “Dean’s autonomy is precious to him, and you above anyone should appreciate how private he truly is. He shields as naturally as breathing and I will not force him to let me in.”
The other angel was stony-faced for a long moment, and then his entire body uncoiled with a long-suffering sigh and a dramatic eye roll, and he spoke in a language Adam had never heard before.
“When we pull Dean outta the fire on this one, you and I have having a long chat about bondage and domination, bro,” Gabriel said in Enochian. “I’ve never met anyone in more desperate need of taking down into deep subspace than your mate.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Castiel replied. “Dean has refused submission to anyone for as long as I’ve known him.”
“Didn’t say it’d be easy,” the archangel defended airily. “Just said he needed it.”
“Could you two stop talking about Dean’s sex life and start helping me figure out how we’re gonna find him?” Sam snapped. All three heads turned. Sam couldn’t decipher the angels’ expressions, and Adam just looked confused. “What?”
“This cannot remain unaddressed,” Castiel said solemnly, not bothering to specify to whom he was speaking.
He didn’t need to. The archangel caught his meaning, gazing at his mate with veiled eyes. “I know.”
“What?” Sam insisted.
“You’re speaking Enochian,” Castiel informed him softly. “Fluently. And you understand what we’re saying.”
Sam visibly startled and Gabriel sighed. “We keep putting off the chat we need to have about the bond. Apparently, that’s no longer a good idea… not with you pulling things out of my head without even realizing you’re doing it.”
“Oh.” Sam’s voice managed to sound very small, which immediately drew Gabriel to his side.
“What the Hell’s going on?” Adam demanded.
“You boys got a bead on Dean yet?” Bobby shouted as he stamped down the stairs.
Taking a breath, Sam took Gabriel’s hand and squeezed it. “Everybody upstairs,” he urged softly in English, taking charge of the room. “Looks like explanation time.”
* * *
All things considered, Adam figured he might’ve liked his brothers if John had ever brought them around. Dean had been kind’ve a jackass about things, but he’d been acting out of a protective instinct, no matter how unwarranted Adam thought it might be. He had a feeling he and Dean had a lot in common. And Dean had suggested the meatloaf sandwiches earlier, which were always a brilliant idea.
Sam was gentler, more cerebral. His authority had a quieter edge than Dean’s, who seemed to echo John almost unconsciously, and Sam was genuinely concerned about how Adam was reacting to the whole mess. He’d called down another pair of angels; Adam remembered them from the resurrection field as well, and had reassured Adam they would have a chance to talk once the plan to find Dean was in place.
But he knew that Sam was supposed to be Lucifer’s vessel. Knew that Castiel and any other angels working with him were on the run from the angels that had brought Adam back to life. Adam wasn’t supposed to be here; wasn’t a part of this. A tight-knit rogue third faction bravely standing against the war that was coming at them from both sides was a highly romantic notion, and from what Zachariah had said, Dean and Castiel were making it even more so with their star-crossed affair. Apparently, so was Sam, who was obviously involved with the little amber-eyed angel who had an oral fixation that would’ve raised even Freud’s eyebrows.
Adam didn’t want any part of their little insurrection. Didn’t care why they were doing it or why Sam and Dean were so determined to bring him around to their way of thinking. He’d been in Heaven. Granted, there were a lot of things he’d wanted to do with his life, and it wasn’t very fair that he’d never had the chance, but that couldn’t be helped. Zachariah had told him that Michael, the First Archangel, needed him for the most important thing anyone would ever do. That he would be allowed to return to Heaven when it was over, and see his mother again there, no matter what happened. Michael had promised, Zachariah said. All Adam had to do was meet him and say ‘yes’.
Which meant that while everyone on ‘Team Free Will’ here was distracted, Adam had to get out, get away. He figured he’d need to go somewhere and pray for Michael to come to him. Michael would hear him if he prayed. He was an angel, after all; wasn’t that how these things worked?
It hadn’t taken long for everyone to explain the pieces they knew; the general consensus was that Dean must have gone to confront Zachariah alone over Adam and been taken to a place they called ‘the beautiful room’, where the angels would likely try and extract Adam’s location from Dean by whatever means necessary.
Why Dean would do such a thing when they didn’t even know one another didn’t make any sense, but it gave Adam all the more reason to slip away. If he went to Michael, or found a way to signal him, then the angels would have to let Dean go. They’d have what they wanted. Dean could be released unharmed; Adam would make sure Michael saw to that. He could ask Michael to leave them be, to make sure they got into Paradise. He just needed to get away while they were distracted…
Red-gold wings suddenly blocked his path out the kitchen door. “Going somewhere?”
Adam backed up, startled. The fierce green eyes of the taller angel bored down into him, and he couldn’t help the small frisson of fear that laced through him. “Just… out,” he offered quickly. “For some air.”
Mal sized him up quickly, obviously not believing him for an instant. One titian eyebrow quirked. “I’ll go with you. None of us should be alone just now, even with the wards around this place.”
“That’s okay; there’s no…”
Ignoring him, Mal took a step forward, pushing Adam back towards the study. “Gabriel?”
The name froze Adam before another protest could form. He turned to stare as the smaller angel stepped half away from the knot around Bobby’s desk. “Gabriel? As in the archangel Gabriel?”
A grin cocked along that elfin face. “Present.”
“What are you doing here?” Adam demanded. “I mean, you’re an archangel; aren’t you supposed to be…?”
“Helping Michael kill Lucifer?” Gabriel’s expression never faltered; his eyes taking on a deadly gleam was the only warning anyone had that his patience was wearing thin. “You know nothing about me, kid, and less about the situation. My brothers are bigger bags of dicks than you can imagine, and they’re not above concealing everything but the bare minimum facts to get what they need. It almost worked with Dean and Sam, and it will work on you if you don’t grow some brains fast.”
“Go easy on the boy,” Bobby warned, hoping to defuse what looked like a prime archangel temper gathering steam. “It ain’t his fault he don’t know what’s what.”
“Well, then let’s get him up to speed.”
Gabriel’s voice was like the edge of a knife. Sam couldn’t be sure how bad this was about to go… didn’t want it to make things worse. He started to reach out, to put a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder and draw off his anger, when Abariel flickered a glance at him. Wait, those dark periwinkle eyes said. Let him do this.
This was grace light, burning like a beacon, radiating from the core of the archangel’s vessel. It roiled around him, a palpable stormcloud of time and power, and wings not of flesh and down but lightening and eldritch flame flared while glory and trumpet-sound infused every word that seemed not to be spoken, but roared within their minds…
“Before humans were made, Lucifer was Heylel… Light-Bringer of God… Michael, First of us All, was the Sun Prince, and Heylel the Morning Star… For aeons beyond counting there was nothing that came between them… and Heylel Loved Michael… only Father stood higher in his heart. The prophecy’s been etched into our bones for as long as anyone can remember, and the loss when he Fell was still beyond mortal comprehension.
“For millennia, the battle has been held in abeyance; the Scions never quite in the right place at the right time. God withdrew from us; we can barely feel Him anymore. It has driven the others nearly to madness… I left after giving the Word to Mohammed… Father’s last Command of me… I left the mockery that Heaven had become and did what I was Created to do among the humans I had Sworn to my Father to Love…
“Then Mary Campbell met John Winchester. The Winchesters are scions of Michael; the Campbells are Lucifer’s. And Azazel, one of the Grigori, found Mary… found a weakness and exploited it and a deal was struck: the life of her lover for entry into her home in a decade’s time. She was granted ten years’ peace… a loving husband and two sons, scions of Michael and Lucifer both…
“But Mary was a born huntress. She tried to intervene when Azazel returned to enact his plan for Sam, and died in flame and agony for it. Her husband tried to save her, but it was far too late. What war couldn’t break, her death did. Seven years later, he met your mother: a moment of kindness, of solace in a shattered life. He didn’t know, couldn’t know, that she had been placed in his path because Fate might be a fickle bitch, but She doesn’t take chances. You were conceived to ensure that Michael’s line remained unbroken. A cousin of Campbell blood escaped the angels’ slaughter of the line… too much was at stake to leave it to chance.
“The understudies in place, the stage was set… what did it matter the blood spilled to get there? The dreams destroyed and the families, human and inhuman, rent apart to see it done? The only thing of importance was that Michael possess Dean, and Lucifer Sam, so that one brother could finally kill the other, and damn the cost in human lives or souls. It was always Dean and Sam’s Fate to be the True Vessels… always their destiny for one to be lost in a war that started before they were ever born…
“But Caine’s spirit in their bloodline is stronger than anyone reckoned. They have refused, time and again, to enact the curse bound in their blood, and I have chosen to aid them. We swore to Love humans as we Love our Father, and allowing them to become casualties in Michael and Heylel’s war is nothing but a betrayal of that vow. The cycle must be broken, forever, and your brothers have the will to see it done.”
Adam was pale, shaken, dumbstruck, still blocked from escape by Gamaliel’s steadfast presence. Castiel’s drawn face was still, as though he wasn’t sure how to react to seeing something he had not witnessed in an age. Abariel had moved to shield Bobby, whose mouth was hanging open.
Sam wasn’t sure how much Bobby had really ever put together; hadn’t realized himself that it was his mother’s family that were Lucifer’s vessels. But none of that was as important as the vibration coming from his mate, a sign that his grace and emotions were just barely contained. He reached out, placing a hand at the small of Gabriel’s back, intending to center him again…
Between one blink and the next, they were outside. Gabriel’s eyes were bright, too bright, his wings spread wide… ready to catch the wind… Sam reached out unthinking, caught his face and drew his mate up into a long, wet open kiss.
An offer of solace. A vent for the roil of fury and fear and foresight within.
“Don’t.” Gabriel’s voice was barely controlled, the need for an outlet straining at every seam of his being… he was ready to explode, to fly apart… he needed to run… “Sam, let me…”
Sam cast aside anything resembling caution and sank his fingers into those firestorm wings… “No.”
Gabriel’s control snapped.
Grace blasted out, overwhelming Sam’s defenses. Without knowing how they got there, Sam was naked on his hands and knees and Gabriel’s hands were threading tightly into his hair, tugging and twisting at the barbells through his nipples. Teeth left sharp bites across the axis of Sam’s shoulders as he reared back into Gabriel’s body, hips pressing hard against the searing brand of thick, hot flesh that needed inside him… his legs shifted further apart, buttocks grinding into Gabriel’s hips in blatant invitation. Gabriel took it, hands spreading Sam wide as he drove deep.
The grace roaring between them ignited, burning off the pain of being ridden raw, transmuting the slipcatchdrag until Sam was mindless from the flames under his skin, bucking back and dropping his hands to the Earth, catching himself and opening opening accepting everything Gabriel gave… whatever Gabriel needed from him was his… every muscle and bone seemed weightless, tethered only to hands and teeth and feathers and hard hard heat that sundered him from himself and burned away the darkness and made him whole…
Heat washed through him somewhere beneath the inferno of his mate’s grace, a guttural shout nearly lost between the archangel’s mouth and Sam’s ears already filled with thunder. Slowly, surreally, Sam could feel himself falling back from the height Gabriel had taken them to, his entire body absorbing the flow of comfort that came with liquid warmth flooding into him. A soft protest murmured past his lips as Gabriel pulled free far more slowly than he’d entered.
Slender hands were careful as they touched him, checking for damage unhealed by wild grace. Sam was too blissed out to care if he was hurt; Gabriel could put him to pieces and make him up new and Sam would still love him. Lost in the haze, gathered up into wings and warmth and love as the wildness of passion receded, Sam idly wondered if that was how Lucifer felt about Michael and their Father.
*I don’t know.* Gabriel answered the undirected thought, stroking Sam’s hair. Sam slowly became aware that Gabriel had brought them inside a car… a very familiar car… *Part of me hopes so.*
Are we in the Impala? Sam didn’t lift his head from Gabriel’s naked chest, his eyes closed in contentment. Dean will kill you if he finds out.
*Are you gonna tell him?* Sam blushed and Gabriel chuckled, tucking Sam tighter into his wings and brushing a fond kiss over Sam’s temple. *Didn’t think so.* A pause, the fingers in his hair never ceasing. *Sam, you shouldn’t have done that. You should have just let me go…*
No. Sam nestled closer, tightening his hold. When you hurt, I hurt. I’m not gonna just let you run and hide when you’re in pain, because I know what it’s like to run and have no one come after you. You’ve got me now, just like I’ve got you. This isn’t a one-way street, Gabriel. I’m not the only one in this relationship that’s needed someone to love them no matter what for way too long.
There was a stillness in his mate for a long moment in the aftermath. Sam finally glanced up, lifting away from the warm pillow of Gabriel’s flesh.
Crystal tears tracked down Gabriel’s cheeks, dripping from closed eyes like water weeping through stone walls. Sam shifted and Gabriel wrapped into him, shaking silent sobs of hurt and grief that neither human nor angel was meant to bear. Sam held him, murmuring comfort in Enochian, wrapping his mate in love and belonging until the storm finally ebbed away, leaving Gabriel wrung out and vulnerable against his mate. Safe to be vulnerable after centuries of being alone.
Angels weren’t meant to be cut off from love. From each other and their Father. Sam didn’t think any of them would ever know how much of what was happening had its ultimate root in God’s withdrawal from Heaven, His children left scrambling to wonder why, what they’d done, how to fix it. How everything might have been different if, even after Lucifer had been cast down, Michael or God had reached out to find him, to try and understand without censure, to bring him back without requiring obeisance and offering only compassion.
Whether God came back or not, Gabriel would never want for love again. Sam would give whatever he needed, submit in any way Gabriel wanted, dominate the angel if that’s what it took. Gabriel had given him everything he’d ever wanted: love, belonging, protection, respect. Sam would give his angel everything he needed right back.
“I love you,” Gabriel whispered. “You are out of your mind to take me on when I’m like that. I could have killed you.”
“You’d’ve fixed it,” Sam replied confidently. “You like sex too much to let me stay broken.” Gabriel snerked at that and Sam kissed his hair. “We should go back… we’ve gotta figure out where they took Dean.”
“It’s not a stationary place,” Gabriel advised. “And it’s not entirely part of this plane, so they don’t really have to care where they manifest it. Long as the space has a basic structure, they can put it in somebody’s backyard storage shed and no one would even notice until they opened the door.”
“So how do we find it?”
“Best way is to scry for it; it’s shielded almost as well as that little hideaway I used when we mated, but if we had something of Dean’s that was powerful enough, we could punch through.” Sam’s eyes drifted, an almost guilty, faraway look clouding them, and Gabriel sat up. “You have something, don’t you?”
“I think so,” Sam replied, shivers of desire tracking though him where Gabriel’s wing feathers rustled against his skin. He was hesitant to divulge it; he wasn’t supposed to have it. But it might be the only way. “Let’s get back.”
Gabriel snapped their clothes back in place, and Sam kissed him one last time, slow and loving, before opening the door.
Go To Part Five
Author: Lady Eternal
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Dean/Castiel, Sam/Gabriel
Word Count: 3,280 - this part
Spoilers: If you’ve watched all of Season Five, none. Specific spoilers for episode 5x18.
Warnings: possible abuse of expository devices, rough sex, angst, canon minor character death, OMCs
Disclaimer: If I owned Supernatural, certain events would NEVER have happened and there would be unabashed pr0n. I own little more than a tabby that gets destructive when he feels ignored and am only playing with this world for my own amusement and the free entertainment of others.
Author’s Note: Angelic Mates ‘verse version of Point of No Return. This fic has been circling around my WiP folder for a while, and it’s finally where I want it. Thanks for that in no short supply go to my beta, secondplatypus, who is an unconquerable soul. Hope you all enjoy.
Feedback is adored, so if you like the fic, please comment! And the more details the better; I love knowing what people like about my work.
Part One ~ Part Two ~ Part Three
~ooooOOOoooo~
Adam woke to the sound of frantic shouting as a metal door was dragged open. A glance around the room showed not Dean, but a man in a tan trench coat seated at a desk across the room. He remembered the man’s presence from the field where he’d been resurrected; he was an angel. Moments later, the face registered. Castiel… he’s the angel that helped Dean get away from Michael once before… the one that he’s mated to… Sitting up slowly, Adam’s instincts as a healer began to kick in. Something about the angel seemed so… sad…
“Cas!” Sam burst through the door, panic written across his face. “I can’t sense Dean; he’s not in the house or the yard. Is he okay? Where is he?”
Castiel looked up and Sam faltered a step back. There was a hollow expression in those lapis eyes; raw pain ripped up out of the angel across the bond that staggered Sam where he stood. “He is shielding, Sam. Not even I can sense Dean so long as he is keeping us out.”
Sam stared, gape-mouthed; an angel Adam didn’t know stepped past him, eyes burning amber fire. “How in the Seven Hells did he figure out how to shield that well on his own? And why did you allow it?”
Adam watched Castiel’s eyes darken with anger. “Dean’s autonomy is precious to him, and you above anyone should appreciate how private he truly is. He shields as naturally as breathing and I will not force him to let me in.”
The other angel was stony-faced for a long moment, and then his entire body uncoiled with a long-suffering sigh and a dramatic eye roll, and he spoke in a language Adam had never heard before.
“When we pull Dean outta the fire on this one, you and I have having a long chat about bondage and domination, bro,” Gabriel said in Enochian. “I’ve never met anyone in more desperate need of taking down into deep subspace than your mate.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Castiel replied. “Dean has refused submission to anyone for as long as I’ve known him.”
“Didn’t say it’d be easy,” the archangel defended airily. “Just said he needed it.”
“Could you two stop talking about Dean’s sex life and start helping me figure out how we’re gonna find him?” Sam snapped. All three heads turned. Sam couldn’t decipher the angels’ expressions, and Adam just looked confused. “What?”
“This cannot remain unaddressed,” Castiel said solemnly, not bothering to specify to whom he was speaking.
He didn’t need to. The archangel caught his meaning, gazing at his mate with veiled eyes. “I know.”
“What?” Sam insisted.
“You’re speaking Enochian,” Castiel informed him softly. “Fluently. And you understand what we’re saying.”
Sam visibly startled and Gabriel sighed. “We keep putting off the chat we need to have about the bond. Apparently, that’s no longer a good idea… not with you pulling things out of my head without even realizing you’re doing it.”
“Oh.” Sam’s voice managed to sound very small, which immediately drew Gabriel to his side.
“What the Hell’s going on?” Adam demanded.
“You boys got a bead on Dean yet?” Bobby shouted as he stamped down the stairs.
Taking a breath, Sam took Gabriel’s hand and squeezed it. “Everybody upstairs,” he urged softly in English, taking charge of the room. “Looks like explanation time.”
* * *
All things considered, Adam figured he might’ve liked his brothers if John had ever brought them around. Dean had been kind’ve a jackass about things, but he’d been acting out of a protective instinct, no matter how unwarranted Adam thought it might be. He had a feeling he and Dean had a lot in common. And Dean had suggested the meatloaf sandwiches earlier, which were always a brilliant idea.
Sam was gentler, more cerebral. His authority had a quieter edge than Dean’s, who seemed to echo John almost unconsciously, and Sam was genuinely concerned about how Adam was reacting to the whole mess. He’d called down another pair of angels; Adam remembered them from the resurrection field as well, and had reassured Adam they would have a chance to talk once the plan to find Dean was in place.
But he knew that Sam was supposed to be Lucifer’s vessel. Knew that Castiel and any other angels working with him were on the run from the angels that had brought Adam back to life. Adam wasn’t supposed to be here; wasn’t a part of this. A tight-knit rogue third faction bravely standing against the war that was coming at them from both sides was a highly romantic notion, and from what Zachariah had said, Dean and Castiel were making it even more so with their star-crossed affair. Apparently, so was Sam, who was obviously involved with the little amber-eyed angel who had an oral fixation that would’ve raised even Freud’s eyebrows.
Adam didn’t want any part of their little insurrection. Didn’t care why they were doing it or why Sam and Dean were so determined to bring him around to their way of thinking. He’d been in Heaven. Granted, there were a lot of things he’d wanted to do with his life, and it wasn’t very fair that he’d never had the chance, but that couldn’t be helped. Zachariah had told him that Michael, the First Archangel, needed him for the most important thing anyone would ever do. That he would be allowed to return to Heaven when it was over, and see his mother again there, no matter what happened. Michael had promised, Zachariah said. All Adam had to do was meet him and say ‘yes’.
Which meant that while everyone on ‘Team Free Will’ here was distracted, Adam had to get out, get away. He figured he’d need to go somewhere and pray for Michael to come to him. Michael would hear him if he prayed. He was an angel, after all; wasn’t that how these things worked?
It hadn’t taken long for everyone to explain the pieces they knew; the general consensus was that Dean must have gone to confront Zachariah alone over Adam and been taken to a place they called ‘the beautiful room’, where the angels would likely try and extract Adam’s location from Dean by whatever means necessary.
Why Dean would do such a thing when they didn’t even know one another didn’t make any sense, but it gave Adam all the more reason to slip away. If he went to Michael, or found a way to signal him, then the angels would have to let Dean go. They’d have what they wanted. Dean could be released unharmed; Adam would make sure Michael saw to that. He could ask Michael to leave them be, to make sure they got into Paradise. He just needed to get away while they were distracted…
Red-gold wings suddenly blocked his path out the kitchen door. “Going somewhere?”
Adam backed up, startled. The fierce green eyes of the taller angel bored down into him, and he couldn’t help the small frisson of fear that laced through him. “Just… out,” he offered quickly. “For some air.”
Mal sized him up quickly, obviously not believing him for an instant. One titian eyebrow quirked. “I’ll go with you. None of us should be alone just now, even with the wards around this place.”
“That’s okay; there’s no…”
Ignoring him, Mal took a step forward, pushing Adam back towards the study. “Gabriel?”
The name froze Adam before another protest could form. He turned to stare as the smaller angel stepped half away from the knot around Bobby’s desk. “Gabriel? As in the archangel Gabriel?”
A grin cocked along that elfin face. “Present.”
“What are you doing here?” Adam demanded. “I mean, you’re an archangel; aren’t you supposed to be…?”
“Helping Michael kill Lucifer?” Gabriel’s expression never faltered; his eyes taking on a deadly gleam was the only warning anyone had that his patience was wearing thin. “You know nothing about me, kid, and less about the situation. My brothers are bigger bags of dicks than you can imagine, and they’re not above concealing everything but the bare minimum facts to get what they need. It almost worked with Dean and Sam, and it will work on you if you don’t grow some brains fast.”
“Go easy on the boy,” Bobby warned, hoping to defuse what looked like a prime archangel temper gathering steam. “It ain’t his fault he don’t know what’s what.”
“Well, then let’s get him up to speed.”
Gabriel’s voice was like the edge of a knife. Sam couldn’t be sure how bad this was about to go… didn’t want it to make things worse. He started to reach out, to put a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder and draw off his anger, when Abariel flickered a glance at him. Wait, those dark periwinkle eyes said. Let him do this.
This was grace light, burning like a beacon, radiating from the core of the archangel’s vessel. It roiled around him, a palpable stormcloud of time and power, and wings not of flesh and down but lightening and eldritch flame flared while glory and trumpet-sound infused every word that seemed not to be spoken, but roared within their minds…
“Before humans were made, Lucifer was Heylel… Light-Bringer of God… Michael, First of us All, was the Sun Prince, and Heylel the Morning Star… For aeons beyond counting there was nothing that came between them… and Heylel Loved Michael… only Father stood higher in his heart. The prophecy’s been etched into our bones for as long as anyone can remember, and the loss when he Fell was still beyond mortal comprehension.
“For millennia, the battle has been held in abeyance; the Scions never quite in the right place at the right time. God withdrew from us; we can barely feel Him anymore. It has driven the others nearly to madness… I left after giving the Word to Mohammed… Father’s last Command of me… I left the mockery that Heaven had become and did what I was Created to do among the humans I had Sworn to my Father to Love…
“Then Mary Campbell met John Winchester. The Winchesters are scions of Michael; the Campbells are Lucifer’s. And Azazel, one of the Grigori, found Mary… found a weakness and exploited it and a deal was struck: the life of her lover for entry into her home in a decade’s time. She was granted ten years’ peace… a loving husband and two sons, scions of Michael and Lucifer both…
“But Mary was a born huntress. She tried to intervene when Azazel returned to enact his plan for Sam, and died in flame and agony for it. Her husband tried to save her, but it was far too late. What war couldn’t break, her death did. Seven years later, he met your mother: a moment of kindness, of solace in a shattered life. He didn’t know, couldn’t know, that she had been placed in his path because Fate might be a fickle bitch, but She doesn’t take chances. You were conceived to ensure that Michael’s line remained unbroken. A cousin of Campbell blood escaped the angels’ slaughter of the line… too much was at stake to leave it to chance.
“The understudies in place, the stage was set… what did it matter the blood spilled to get there? The dreams destroyed and the families, human and inhuman, rent apart to see it done? The only thing of importance was that Michael possess Dean, and Lucifer Sam, so that one brother could finally kill the other, and damn the cost in human lives or souls. It was always Dean and Sam’s Fate to be the True Vessels… always their destiny for one to be lost in a war that started before they were ever born…
“But Caine’s spirit in their bloodline is stronger than anyone reckoned. They have refused, time and again, to enact the curse bound in their blood, and I have chosen to aid them. We swore to Love humans as we Love our Father, and allowing them to become casualties in Michael and Heylel’s war is nothing but a betrayal of that vow. The cycle must be broken, forever, and your brothers have the will to see it done.”
Adam was pale, shaken, dumbstruck, still blocked from escape by Gamaliel’s steadfast presence. Castiel’s drawn face was still, as though he wasn’t sure how to react to seeing something he had not witnessed in an age. Abariel had moved to shield Bobby, whose mouth was hanging open.
Sam wasn’t sure how much Bobby had really ever put together; hadn’t realized himself that it was his mother’s family that were Lucifer’s vessels. But none of that was as important as the vibration coming from his mate, a sign that his grace and emotions were just barely contained. He reached out, placing a hand at the small of Gabriel’s back, intending to center him again…
Between one blink and the next, they were outside. Gabriel’s eyes were bright, too bright, his wings spread wide… ready to catch the wind… Sam reached out unthinking, caught his face and drew his mate up into a long, wet open kiss.
An offer of solace. A vent for the roil of fury and fear and foresight within.
“Don’t.” Gabriel’s voice was barely controlled, the need for an outlet straining at every seam of his being… he was ready to explode, to fly apart… he needed to run… “Sam, let me…”
Sam cast aside anything resembling caution and sank his fingers into those firestorm wings… “No.”
Gabriel’s control snapped.
Grace blasted out, overwhelming Sam’s defenses. Without knowing how they got there, Sam was naked on his hands and knees and Gabriel’s hands were threading tightly into his hair, tugging and twisting at the barbells through his nipples. Teeth left sharp bites across the axis of Sam’s shoulders as he reared back into Gabriel’s body, hips pressing hard against the searing brand of thick, hot flesh that needed inside him… his legs shifted further apart, buttocks grinding into Gabriel’s hips in blatant invitation. Gabriel took it, hands spreading Sam wide as he drove deep.
The grace roaring between them ignited, burning off the pain of being ridden raw, transmuting the slipcatchdrag until Sam was mindless from the flames under his skin, bucking back and dropping his hands to the Earth, catching himself and opening opening accepting everything Gabriel gave… whatever Gabriel needed from him was his… every muscle and bone seemed weightless, tethered only to hands and teeth and feathers and hard hard heat that sundered him from himself and burned away the darkness and made him whole…
Heat washed through him somewhere beneath the inferno of his mate’s grace, a guttural shout nearly lost between the archangel’s mouth and Sam’s ears already filled with thunder. Slowly, surreally, Sam could feel himself falling back from the height Gabriel had taken them to, his entire body absorbing the flow of comfort that came with liquid warmth flooding into him. A soft protest murmured past his lips as Gabriel pulled free far more slowly than he’d entered.
Slender hands were careful as they touched him, checking for damage unhealed by wild grace. Sam was too blissed out to care if he was hurt; Gabriel could put him to pieces and make him up new and Sam would still love him. Lost in the haze, gathered up into wings and warmth and love as the wildness of passion receded, Sam idly wondered if that was how Lucifer felt about Michael and their Father.
*I don’t know.* Gabriel answered the undirected thought, stroking Sam’s hair. Sam slowly became aware that Gabriel had brought them inside a car… a very familiar car… *Part of me hopes so.*
Are we in the Impala? Sam didn’t lift his head from Gabriel’s naked chest, his eyes closed in contentment. Dean will kill you if he finds out.
*Are you gonna tell him?* Sam blushed and Gabriel chuckled, tucking Sam tighter into his wings and brushing a fond kiss over Sam’s temple. *Didn’t think so.* A pause, the fingers in his hair never ceasing. *Sam, you shouldn’t have done that. You should have just let me go…*
No. Sam nestled closer, tightening his hold. When you hurt, I hurt. I’m not gonna just let you run and hide when you’re in pain, because I know what it’s like to run and have no one come after you. You’ve got me now, just like I’ve got you. This isn’t a one-way street, Gabriel. I’m not the only one in this relationship that’s needed someone to love them no matter what for way too long.
There was a stillness in his mate for a long moment in the aftermath. Sam finally glanced up, lifting away from the warm pillow of Gabriel’s flesh.
Crystal tears tracked down Gabriel’s cheeks, dripping from closed eyes like water weeping through stone walls. Sam shifted and Gabriel wrapped into him, shaking silent sobs of hurt and grief that neither human nor angel was meant to bear. Sam held him, murmuring comfort in Enochian, wrapping his mate in love and belonging until the storm finally ebbed away, leaving Gabriel wrung out and vulnerable against his mate. Safe to be vulnerable after centuries of being alone.
Angels weren’t meant to be cut off from love. From each other and their Father. Sam didn’t think any of them would ever know how much of what was happening had its ultimate root in God’s withdrawal from Heaven, His children left scrambling to wonder why, what they’d done, how to fix it. How everything might have been different if, even after Lucifer had been cast down, Michael or God had reached out to find him, to try and understand without censure, to bring him back without requiring obeisance and offering only compassion.
Whether God came back or not, Gabriel would never want for love again. Sam would give whatever he needed, submit in any way Gabriel wanted, dominate the angel if that’s what it took. Gabriel had given him everything he’d ever wanted: love, belonging, protection, respect. Sam would give his angel everything he needed right back.
“I love you,” Gabriel whispered. “You are out of your mind to take me on when I’m like that. I could have killed you.”
“You’d’ve fixed it,” Sam replied confidently. “You like sex too much to let me stay broken.” Gabriel snerked at that and Sam kissed his hair. “We should go back… we’ve gotta figure out where they took Dean.”
“It’s not a stationary place,” Gabriel advised. “And it’s not entirely part of this plane, so they don’t really have to care where they manifest it. Long as the space has a basic structure, they can put it in somebody’s backyard storage shed and no one would even notice until they opened the door.”
“So how do we find it?”
“Best way is to scry for it; it’s shielded almost as well as that little hideaway I used when we mated, but if we had something of Dean’s that was powerful enough, we could punch through.” Sam’s eyes drifted, an almost guilty, faraway look clouding them, and Gabriel sat up. “You have something, don’t you?”
“I think so,” Sam replied, shivers of desire tracking though him where Gabriel’s wing feathers rustled against his skin. He was hesitant to divulge it; he wasn’t supposed to have it. But it might be the only way. “Let’s get back.”
Gabriel snapped their clothes back in place, and Sam kissed him one last time, slow and loving, before opening the door.
Go To Part Five