Fic - Shape the Invisible
Title: Shape the Invisible
Book One: Keeper of the Flame
Author: Lady Eternal
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Gabriel/Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Spoilers: none
Author’s Note: So… this is my brain on fairy tales. Specifically the myth of Cupid and Psyche and its variant, East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Please see the Master Post for complete warnings, acknowledgements, summary and notes.
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.
Music:
Your Body is a Wonderland - John Mayer
Tainted Love - Marilyn Manson
Temple of Love - Sisters of Mercy
The Sweetest Taboo - Sade
Desert Rose - Sting
Shape the Invisible - Martin Page
Breath of Life - Florence and the Machine
~ooooOOOoooo~
December 2002
It was nearly Christmas. No snow dusted the rooftops of the dorms or drifted on the sidewalks and quads: a stark contrast to the winters of Sam’s childhood. Only a few students had decorated for the holiday, mostly those that were staying over the winter intersession for one reason or another.
Sam wasn’t one of them. Everything Sam was taking with him was packed and in his car, and he had a flight out to South Dakota the following afternoon, where he and Dean would be spending Christmas with a hunter Dean had come to rely on. The man owned a salvage yard and had taken an unlikely liking to Dean, fondly calling him an ‘idjit’ and giving him work or help whenever Dean called.
Brady was gone already, having left before the semester had even ended to spend Christmas in Cancun. While Brady had always been more carefree than Sam, their dedication to their respective heavy course-loads and long-term goals had been a foundation for friendship between them instead of bemused tolerance. But something had changed over the past Thanksgiving break, and in the last month Brady had blown off classes, ignored all assignments and projects. Alcohol was rapidly becoming the least of his vices.
His sudden behavior change had the hair at Sam’s nape standing on end. His mother had warned him and Dean both about such drastic personality shifts could mean, and none of them presaged anything good. Brady had even started getting uneasy about Gabe’s visitations, and used the prospect of Sam’s lover dropping by as an excuse to go carousing.
It was an unexpected benefit, but Sam couldn’t feel entirely guilty about reaping it. Lately, blackout or no, Sam hung the glo-stick on his doorknob and his lover came as soon as they were cloaked in darkness. Much as Sam fretted about Brady’s altered personality and what it might portend, it had been all too easy to put off thoughts of intervention while cocooned with the passionate older man, whose caresses were so gentle and laughter so infectious.
After Christmas, Sam fully intended to get to the bottom of Brady’s metamorphosis, if only for the sake of one of the first friends he’d made here. But just now, Sam had other concerns to manage.
His attention snapped into focus when Gabe came strolling in the open door once it was fully dark outside, letting it drift shut behind him. “Hey, gorgeous.”
“Hey.” Sam watched his lover advance with hooded eyes, watched as something in his lover’s gait faltered as he neared the center of the floor, and then the shorter man stopped while still a few feet away, his head cocking to the side. “Something wrong?”
“You’re upset,” Gabe asserted quietly. “What happened? Big bro cancel Christmas? Or has that roommate of yours already landed himself in a Mexican prison?”
“No.” When his lover didn’t advance, Sam slowly uncoiled from his seat and rose.
“What then?” There was a quiet scoff. “Don’t tell me I’ve done something.”
“It’s nothing you did; no,” Sam agreed. His voice felt low and rough, like their father’s had gotten after a couple glasses of whiskey. Sam wished he had some on hand just now.
“Then what?”
Sam could almost imagine seeing the brow between those almond-shaped eyes furrowing, or a perplexed frown on those talented lips. He wished he couldn’t. It would make all of this easier. But nothing had been easy in his life since his mother had revealed her secret, and he should’ve remembered that.
There was no sound but the tiny faint snick as his thumb depressed the button on his heavy-duty Maglite, his arm swinging up to aim the beam at the other man’s face. But as quickly as the light flooded from the end, it fizzled and winked out, and Sam felt his face contort into a snarl of anger as he extended his swing, intending to catch the smaller man across the face with the butt of the flashlight.
Without so much as a whisper of air, his lover was across the room, outside the bounds of the devil’s trap Sam had taken such pains to establish. The only way Sam knew he was still in the room at all was the heaviness of his breathing. “What the Hell was that for?”
“You’re not human,” Sam answered. It took effort to keep his voice flat and cool, to not let how much the revelation had affected him bleed through.
The silence between them was deafening, drowning out all but the sound of Sam’s own heartbeat in his ears. Then, soft and astonished: “You didn’t know.”
“And why would you think I knew?” Sam snapped, some of his anger leaking into his voice.
“Because you’re a hunter.” The reply was as offhand as it was shocking to Sam’s ears. “You keep it hidden well enough from humans, but most of them wouldn’t know a hunter from a neo-Wiccan anyway.”
It was all the confirmation Sam needed. The flashlight thumped to the floor as he bent, never keeping his eyes off the dark silhouette of the other man. The whisper of a blade drawing out of a sheath seemed inordinately loud in the quiet as he stood back up, his other hand tightening around the evergreen stake it had been gripping since before Gabe had come in. “What are you?”
Another heartbeat passed. “I can’t tell you that, Sam.”
“You’re not a demon,” Sam asserted, “not with how easy you danced out of my devil’s trap.”
“You could’ve set it wrong,” Gabe hedged.
“I didn’t.”
There was a bark of laughter. “You’re right; you didn’t. It’s actually strong enough to lock in somebody pretty high-level… if that somebody happened to be a demon.” Sam took a step towards him and the humor in his tone died away. “Now listen, gorgeous-”
“Don’t call me that,” Sam snarled. “You’ve been playing me since the beginning. Whatever your game is, it’s over. Now tell me what you are, before I figure it out by seeing what kills you.”
Another pregnant pause followed the threat. Sam knew his lover was considering his options; was no longer sure if the sigils he’d put up would keep the creature in this space long enough to be questioned. He needed to know what he was dealing with before… before…
“You’re not going to kill me.” Gabe’s voice was soft but certain, and he took a step closer as if to test the theory. “Even if you had something that could, you wouldn’t do it.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Sam warned.
This time, it was Sam remaining still while his lover advanced on him. This time, the steps were careful and non-threatening, as if Gabe was approaching a wounded animal that he wanted to help. “You’re angry; I get it. And maybe I neglected to mention that we’re not the same species. But you and me… there’s something special here, Sam. You’re hurt, but you’re not going to try to kill me.”
The hand with the dagger in it twitched, making the point of the knife flick up towards the creature before him. It was an old weapon, one of the set his mother had passed over to him years ago: handmade silver blade that he kept razor sharp with a hilt of ash that was worn smooth from generations of use. When his mother had told he and Dean her secret, she’d taught them what each and every sigil inscribed on the silver meant, how to cleanse and care for them.
His arm was coiled, ready to bury the blade in the creature’s gut. Better still, his throat, so he could no longer lie to Sam.
“Sam…”
“What do you want from me?” Sam demanded, the words breaking out. “Did he send you? Did he think that because you’re not a demon I wouldn’t figure it out eventually?”
“I’m not working you for anyone, gorgeous.” There was a trace of anger in that voice now, a possessive belligerence that sent unwanted thrills down Sam’s spine. “That roommate of yours might be, but not me.”
Shock washed through Sam at the accusation, driving him a step back in involuntary disbelief. But even as he opened his mouth to defend Brady, the words wouldn’t come. Too many clues fell into place too quickly: the sudden behavior change, the way he’d gotten a lot pushier about trying to get Sam to join him in his debauched pursuits. The subtle way Brady started probing for more information about his family, or how Sam would find things moved as if Brady had been searching his belongings for more than just Sam’s stash of condoms.
He’d shrugged all the signs off as Brady being Brady. Being the nosy, devil-may-care, boundaries-are-fluid roommate he’d befriended so easily last year. But if Brady was a demon now, and no longer Brady at all, Sam’s problems had just magnified exponentially. Brady’s been avoiding the room whenever Gabe might be coming… or when he’s been here… what kind of creature could he be if a demon wants to avoid him?
“Move in with me.”
“What?” Sam blinked, his shocked reverie broken. That was the absolute last thing he’d expected his mysterious lover to say.
“It’ll be a lot safer than this place, and you’ll never want for anything. I’ll see to that. And then there’s the added bonus of not needing to dodge your potentially-possessed roommate anymore.”
Sam stared at the form of his lover: often little more than a shape in the darkness, but a shape he’d come to care for. “You’re joking.”
“You’re a hunter, Sam,” Gabe continued, his voice soft and coaxing. “It’s obviously in your blood; even if it’s not what you want your life to be full-time, you can’t unlearn what you’ve learned. You can be everything you are with me: law student, hunter, sex god.” That drew a blush from Sam, making Gabe smile. “C’mon, gorgeous. I may not be human, but I don’t prey on them and I think you know that on some level. We’re good together even when we’re not having sex, and the sex is fantastic. You know there’s too much right about this to turn me down.”
Slowly, carefully, the evergreen stake was set aside. The silver blade was sheathed in Sam’s boot. Gabe watched the way Sam’s muscles flexed in the half-shadow as the human put up his weapons, then crossed the distance between them at a deliberate pace.
A chill shot down Gabe’s spine as Sam closed on him, already towering over him and surely still growing, hazel eyes intense in the darkness. Not for the first time, he wished he could gaze upon this beautiful youth in the full light of day…
At once, he was grabbed by the arms, yanked up and in by powerful hands. It shocked out a gasp that was lost in the soft inhale of Sam’s breath before he spoke. “Tell me what you are.” A command, simple and direct, soft as a velvet glove over an iron fist.
“I can’t.” It was half-plea, half-defiance. He didn’t know who was leading this dance anymore.
“Tell me.” Sam bore him back, braced him against the wall. Those fox eyes were slitted and glittering, dangerous hungers waking behind them.
“I can’t, Sam.” Everything in him wanted to give in… give over to this beautiful, powerful man who would only get stronger with time…
“You will.” A threat. A promise. Sam’s hands bunched at the front of his lover’s shirt and tore it open, buttons pinging into the shadows as he lifted the smaller man higher… teeth stinging a trail from collarbone to nipples, hands braced under hips that jerked reflexively towards him as moans began to cascade from candy-sweet lips.
“Tell me.” Teeth pinched, nibbled; lips suckled flesh drawn red. A trail of bites blazoned black in the grey half-light, and all the while Sam held his lover fast, keeping him locked in place no matter how tightly those thighs clenched or how urgently those clever fingers knotted in his hair. “Tell me.”
“Can’t…”
His breath labored, or was it only his mind finding resistance a trial? Sam couldn’t tell. Could only proceed, refusing to give quarter. One hand gripped harder, shifting the weight of his lover while the other hand slid between them, opening the strained zipper of Gabe’s jeans.
It wasn’t surprising that there was no barrier between the hot line of his lover’s erection and the restrictive cotton, and Sam’s fingers snuck inside, his thumb sweeping lightly over the weeping slit. “I can make you tell me...”
“You think so, gorgeous?”
A challenge, toothsome and clever even when breathless. Sam grinned back. “I know so. Tell me what you are.”
“Don’t bet the house against an older man, Sammy.” A sinuous wriggle, giving a hint of friction against exposed flesh. The scratch of the zipper was nothing to the need for more pressure… for tighter gloving warmth than that massive hand around him… A soft hum rolled in Sam’s throat and then he was flying…
No. Not flying: falling. Gabe found himself dropped to the bed, abandoned and bereft of Sam’s warmth. He stared up in shock at the dimpled cocky smile his lover was wearing as the younger man sat back down in the desk chair. “Sam…!”
“Way I see it, you’ve got two options,” Sam’s voice was deceptively mild, his long fingers curling back around the evergreen stake with a slow, suggestive glide. Gabe let out an involuntary sound that was so not a whimper. “One: you tell me what you are and maybe we establish some trust again.. Two: you don’t tell me, and I seal this room tighter than a submarine after banishing your ass.”
“You’ve never learned anything that could banish me,” Gabe retorted, starting to get irritated.
“Maybe not, but I can wait you out,” Sam shot back, acid bitterness lacing his tone despite himself. “You’re always gone in the morning anyway.”
He saw Gabe absorb the words like a blow, regret twisting through his gut. The whole situation was a mess, but Sam hadn’t wanted to let on how much it all hurt, how much this… thing had gotten to him. He hadn’t wanted to acknowledge, even to himself, how much he was starting to love this man-shaped creature that had been warming his bed. It was stupid and reckless, and Dean would blister his ears for at least an hour over it when he finally owned up. Sam wanted, felt he deserved an explanation.
Lost in his thoughts, Sam didn’t fight the fingers that slid into his, uncurling them so the stake clattered softly onto the desk. Blind from hurt and darkness, Sam hadn’t even noticed his lover moving. But then Gabe was gliding into his lap, wrapping around Sam and indulging his mouth with slow, soft kisses that beguiled the hurt away as he wound around Sam’s body. “Gabe… Gabe, don’t…”
“You have no idea how much I wish I could see you in sunlight,” Gabe murmured between kisses. “I’d kiss you everywhere it did… fly you somewhere warm and isolated and watch you blush when I hid your clothes… I can’t see you blush in the dark, you know: not properly. Not blooming crimson and alive under your skin… you can’t even guess how much I’d give to see you in my brother’s light…”
“Gabe…”
“There are no rainbows in the darkness, Sam,” Gabe murmured, his voice wet with tears. “I wish I could change that, but I can’t. This is all I can give… all I can have...” Sam silenced him, mouth pressing up to mouth and devouring words drenched in regret, tasting saline and licking it away like the sweetness he usually found on those lips. “Don’t be angry with me,” Gabe murmured, hands struggling with Sam’s clothes, desperate for skin… for warmth and life…
“Just tell me what you are,” Sam pleaded.
“I can’t.” Gabe made a frustrated sound. “I hate this… Sam, just let me…”
“Gabe…”
An oath growled out in a language Sam didn’t know, the language he thought he’d heard the last time Gabe had visited. In one smooth glide of those nimble hands, Sam’s clothes were gone, his lover naked in his lap and grinding against him with desperation Sam didn’t understand. “How’d you do that?”
“Magic,” Gabe whispered. “Need you so bad…”
“Jesus, Gabe…” Sam groaned, hands almost clammy as they pawed for purchase on Gabe’s slim, solid back. The chair rocked back sharply as Gabe shifted his weight and Sam overcompensated, sending them spilling onto the floor in a jangle of limbs. Sam started to scramble off, to apologize and find out if Gabe was hurt, but the words were still trying to form on his tongue when Gabe rolled them onto Sam’s back, right into the middle of the blue-tape devil’s trap that Sam had so painstakingly laid out on the carpet.
Between one startled blink and the next, Gabe had taken hold of Sam’s rock-hard erection and was pushing down onto it, seating himself in a smooth glide. It drove out a moan, Sam’s eyes rolling up at tight and heat and need, and Gabe was shaking, quivering like the string of a fresh-fired crossbow, his thighs squeezing at Sam’s hips and his fingers flexing into the muscles of Sam’s chest. “Sam…”
“Shut up.” It took less than nothing to roll them, and then Sam was hammering deep, a punishing rhythm that would rub Gabe’s back raw across carpet fiber and tape edges. He didn’t care. Couldn’t bring himself to care. The safe little world he’d been building here at Stanford was crumbling in his hands, and Gabe wasn’t what he seemed nothing was what it seemed nothing was real except this and Dean was so far away…
Release ripped free of them both, a sob dragging brokenly from Sam’s throat as his whole body seemed to twist and wring under the force of it. Sam collapsed away from his lover, limp and aching, confused and wishing not for the first time that his mother could truly have outrun her family’s legacy.
Slowly, Gabe rolled and inched until he was tucked against Sam’s side. Sam couldn’t make himself push the creature away from him, not when the familiar weight was still soothing in spite of everything. He wanted to roll and bury his face in Gabe’s hair, to let the other man comfort him just by being there. The fingers of Gabe’s hand crept up to rest over Sam’s heart, then started straying, tracing idle patterns across Sam’s torso.
He felt them still when they found it: the soft uncalloused pads brushing over the edge of the hypertrophic scar just below Sam’s waistline. He felt the question in the way Gabe’s head lifted from its cushion against the hollow of his shoulder, in the exploratory drift of those fingers along the edges of the now-raised tissue. “It happened when we were together last night,” Sam murmured. “I didn’t notice until this morning, and you were already gone.”
“I…” A hesitation, then a deep sigh of regret. “I didn’t know I’d done it… that it was even possible. Gods above, Sam: if I’d known…”
“You still would’ve left.” It was an accusation, hurt and anger commingled but lacking the heat of his earlier fury. “You always leave.”
“I have to.” Gabe sighed again, then sat up. Sam followed suit, watching the outline of his lover shifting into a cross-legged position. “Please understand, Sam: my kind was forbidden to appear to humans in sunlight or firelight aeons ago. Even electricity counts. If I’d so much as let you shine that flashlight on my little toe, they’d hoist my petard faster than you could see, and I’d never be allowed back within a mile of you for as long as you live.”
“They?” Sam felt some of his anger ebbing, curiosity edging into control. “They who?”
Nimble fingers reached out, tangling into Sam’s hand. “We all have rulers, Sam. Creatures above and below and right beside you: all of the five realms have their leaders, and those leaders rule with absolute authority.”
“Heaven, Hell, Earth…?”
“Purgatory and Avalon,” Gabe clarified. “The Gods in the Heavens, Lucifer in Hell, Eve in Purgatory, and Oberon and Titania in Avalon.”
Sam’s brow furrowed. “That’s only four. Who rules Earth?”
He could almost feel the smile in the darkness. “Humans. Fractious, confused, good-hearted, clumsy, beautiful humans.”
For some reason, the words sent a dark, cold thrill through Sam’s veins. Tingles of power promised in a whisper, born of blood and sealed with iron. He shook it off, hating the reminder of the mystery surrounding his infancy. If Gabe noticed, he didn’t give any sign. “So you can’t be seen by sun or fire or even electrical light… what about starlight? Or moonlight?”
Sam knew he was smiling then; could see it in the way Gabe’s eyes tilted up just a little in the shadows of the room. “Looking for loopholes. I like the way you think, Sam.” He chuckled softly, squeezing Sam’s hand. “Yes, we can allow humans to see us in the light of the moon and stars. The other stars are too far away to count like this sun does, and moonlight is just sunlight mirrored by the moon. It doesn’t have the same effect that direct light does.”
“And what’s that?” Sam asked.
“Sorry, gorgeous; that’s treading on the other prohibition I have to deal with.” Almost as if the topic discomfited him, Gabe scooted closer, his grip on Sam’s hand tightening. “If we’d just run across each other as hunter and prey, I could tell you what I am. I could probably have gotten away with you finding out even given that first night we spent together, but only if it’d been a one-night show. The relationship that we have now… if I told you what I am, your reaction could be… misconstrued, and I’d get yanked out.”
He didn’t want to ask. It was stupid to even consider it. Sam should still be making a clean break here and getting the truth, not a bunch of vague exposition. But he couldn’t stop the words from coming. “And what exactly is the relationship we have right now?”
Slow as honey, Gabe glided into Sam’s lap, straddling him and wrapping deceptively strong arms around his neck. “I care about you, Sam. A lot. And I think you care about me. I wasn’t just blowing smoke when I said we’re good together. I want you every second I’m not with you. I want you to move in with me so that the very minute the sun goes down, I can reach out my hand and find you beneath it.”
“Why?” Sam asked, voice quiet and uncertain. “Why did you pick me over one of your own kind? Why me when you can’t even tell me what you are?”
“Because, gorgeous,” Gabe murmured, mouth drawing closer and closer until his lips brushed Sam’s as he spoke, “you shine brighter than the morning star. How could I not want you?”
It was stupid. Sam knew it. Knew it and repeated it to himself, one last defensive wall trying to shield his heart. He should break this off. He shouldn’t let this go even an inch further. Whatever Gabe was, he wasn’t human, and non-humans had interfered in Sam and his family’s life enough. He should make Gabe leave and mourn the loss of this wonderful something they were on the cusp of and find someone human.
But Brady had very likely been replaced by a demon, and neither Sam nor Dean was any closer to discovering the agenda of the demon with the yellow eyes. Gabe was offering safety and security, comfort and companionship. It felt like truth when Gabe said he wasn’t working Sam, and Sam wanted to believe it. He might even have information or sources that could help uncover Yellow Eyes’ motives for interfering with the Winchester family.
And then there was the deep ache, throbbing in Sam’s chest like a second heartbeat ever since Gabe had tripped into his life. The sweetness of it when Gabe was near, and the hollow of it when they were apart. Sam didn’t want to label it, but he knew what it would become if he let it grow.
It was reckless and stupid and likely to be the worst decision he ever made, but Sam let his eyes drift shut, closed the last breath of distance between them, and let himself take a leap of faith.
Chapter Four