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~
January 30, 2004
“All right, Sammy.” Dean shot his brother a stern look over breakfast. “What gives?”
Sam looked up from his granola, his expression honestly puzzled. “Whaddya mean, ‘what gives’?”
“This sugar daddy you’ve hooked up with,” Dean clarified. “It’s been a year since you moved in here. You claim he knows about hunting. You said you told him about me and that you help me out with research on my cases. You’ve even said he’s been able to point you in the right direction a couple times. Whenever I talk to you on the phone, you’re yammering on about what the two of you have been up to or I hear him in the background playing with Brax, or he’s practically hanging up the phone on me because he wants to fuck and doesn’t feel like waiting anymore. And yet every time I’m in town, he’s magically not available for the standard family meet & threaten.”
That last part pulled a snicker and a smile out of Sam. “I think you mean ‘meet & greet’, Dean.”
“You greet people when you meet ‘em,” Dean replied airily. “So meet & greet’s actually redundant. And I know a standard Sammy-Winchester evasion tactic when I hear one, so save your breath for answering the more important questions.” He fixed Sam with an implacable expression. “What’s the deal with lover-boy?”
Mentally, Sam berated himself for a moment as he debated how to answer. It wasn’t like he hadn’t known this conversation was in the offing, and he’d known since he’d woken with a print from Gabe’s hand burned into his hip that Dean wasn’t going to like any of the answers he was demanding.
The second semester of his sophomore year and first semester of his junior had been spent in a domestic bliss that Sam hadn’t expected to find for years, and Gabe being a supernatural creature of some kind gave the truly unanticipated bonus of not needing to hide anything about his life. His mother had hidden much of her true past from her family for years, and Sam had expected to do the same when he eventually found a partner to settle down with.
But as time passed and his relationship with Gabe only seemed to grow stronger and more stable, Sam had gotten comfortable. He was happy and safe. Whatever Gabe was, it was apparently something that demons gave a wide berth to rather than confronting, and it meant that the only place Sam needed to worry about dealing with them was on campus. His grades got, if possible, even better, and he’d gotten a 174 on his LSATs. He was nearly guaranteed admission to Stanford Law, and he was on the verge of locking up a hotly prized summer internship at one of the best criminal defense firms in the city.
All of which meant that he’d started to ignore the fact that this conversation was a certainty, not merely a probability. And that he knew Dean had been increasingly unconvinced by the admittedly-feeble explanations he’d been giving for why Gabe was always out of town whenever Dean was going to be visiting.
One of Dean’s eyebrows arched: a clear ‘I’m waiting’ signal. Sam finally just decided to dive headlong into the conversation and take his lumps as they came. “He doesn’t come around when you’re here because he knows you’ll ask more questions if he’s here.”
“And just what the Hell is that supposed to mean?” Dean’s other eyebrow joined its mate, his expression dangerous. “Is he married? Is he keeping you shacked up here to hide you from his wife and kids? Sammy, I swear: if you’d told me this back when-”
“He’s not human.”
Dean’s mouth was still open, but whatever dire threats had been about to spill from his tongue curled up and died there in the wake of that declaration. Then, slowly, Dean’s generous lips drew together and compressed into a fine white line of anger. “You didn’t just say that.”
“I did, Dean.” Sam took another breath and kept going. “He’s not human, and whatever he is, he’s not allowed to show himself to humans in daylight. So we spend the nights together, and days I spend with Brax and Jess, studying and doing research for you and going to class and everything-”
“No, no, no, no, no NO, Sam!” Dean shoved up from the breakfast table, his bacon and eggs forgotten as he paced away and then rounded on his brother. “You are not telling me that you’re actually knowingly involved with something that guys like us hunt!”
Abraxas was standing between Dean and Sam, growling low in his chest. Sam shifted to kneel beside the dog, putting hands on the animal and trying to keep him from springing at Dean in defense of his master. “I didn’t know until we’d been sleeping together for a few months. By then, it wasn’t that easy to just walk away.” He didn’t see the need to mention to Dean that he’d been completely ready to kill Gabe himself when he’d found out. What was important now was making Dean understand why he hadn’t.
“Yeah, it actually is, Sam. You figure out what he is, you ice the sonuvabitch, and you walk away.” Dean swore, taking the hint that he shouldn’t get too aggressive and bringing his tone down a notch. The yearling canine was fiercely protective of his master. “You even bother to run any tests? Or did you just assume Yellow Eyes is above laying honey traps?”
“He’s not a demon,” Sam replied, soft but starting to get angry. “I set a devil’s trap when I started to suspect that something wasn’t right. He walked into it and right back out again. No demon can do that.”
“So he’s something else,” Dean agreed grudgingly. “Doesn’t mean he hasn’t been playing you from the start, Sam. What better way to soften you up for Yellow Eyes than to convince you that your roommate’s a demon and that you need to hole up in his private little prison? Come and go as you please, right up until you can’t anymore… and you’ve been going along with it for… what, exactly? Even I won’t go that far for a decent fuck.”
Sam bristled at that, standing and starting towards Dean. “You act like you’re the first one to think of all this. Well, it’s all already crossed my mind, Dean, and I trust him anyway-”
“How long have you known he’s not human?”
“I don’t see how that-”
“How long, Sam?”
No matter how hard Sam tried to rebel against it, there was something about Dean’s ‘big brother’ tone that compelled him to answer, his shoulders drooping and his face turning away from his elder brother’s unflinching gaze. “Since before I left for the Christmas break when I asked your opinion about moving in with him.”
Viridian flames leaped, and Dean’s fists involuntarily closed. He forced them back open. “A year. You’ve known that he wasn’t human for a year.” He took a long, deep breath and closed his eyes, his head giving a little twitch-shake. “I knew you were lying to me about something… never thought I’d see the day it’d be something like this, though.”
“I didn’t…” Sam’s voice died. He had meant to; couldn’t lie now and protest that he hadn’t. “I didn’t want to tell you until I knew more myself. He claims that he can’t tell me what he is, and to be honest? Nothing fits. There’s nothing about him that matches up to anything we’ve seen or heard about in Mom’s family's journals.”
“Doesn’t make it any better, Sam.” Dean sank back into his chair, half-heartedly poking at the remains of his eggs. “So what do you know about him?”
“He doesn’t prey on humans; his kind is forbidden by the rulers of one of the other Four Realms from appearing to humans in daylight.” Sam ticked off the information, sitting back down as well and petting a still-anxious Abraxas. “He’s got a pretty voracious sweet tooth, no reaction to any kind of metal, wood or holy object, and can appear or disappear at will.” A fond smile pulled across his face. “Though he likes to do it with a snap of his fingers. Adds a bit of style, according to him.”
“He can screw himself with his style,” Dean snarled, voice low and furious. “What else?”
“Demons don’t like being around him; at least Brady doesn’t.” Sam chewed on his lip. “I was able to get confirmation about Brady, by the way.”
“How?” Dean knew it was an attempt to change the subject, but knowing about the demonic presence on Stanford campus was important, too. “Especially without him knowing you were behind it?”
“On Halloween.” A smile crept across Sam’s face. This one, he was particularly proud of. “One of our friends was dressed up as the priest from The Exorcist, and he was carrying around little bottles of holy water with spray heads on top so that he could spritz people with it.”
Dean gave a knowing grin. “And I’m guessing you suggested it, huh?”
“Through Jess; she’s pretty good at being a co-conspirator about a lot of things.” Sam shrugged. “There wasn’t a very big reaction; he dodged most of the spray, but I saw what I needed to see.”
“Anybody else in the crowd react the same way?”
Sam shook his head. “Not that I saw. But where there’s one, there’s bound to be more, especially on a campus the size of Stanford. Problem is: it’s all I can do just to keep up with my coursework at this point. I don’t have time to get distracted hunting for a demon nest. It was really nice, realizing that demons give Gabe a pretty wide berth.”
“Unless it’s all part of the plan.” Dean met his younger brother’s exasperated bitchface with a determined one of his own. “You know it’s a possibility, Sam. He could’ve been playing you from day one; demons have made deals with other creatures before.”
“Usually just short-term stuff,” Sam countered. “They rarely get along with other underbeings for long periods of time. What makes you think Yellow Eyes would put up with Gabe for almost two years now?”
“Because unlike most of the other demons we’ve dealt with, that bastard plays long games.” Dean saw Sam’s mouth open to argue and rushed ahead. “Ten years before you were even a possibility, and he was making deals to get access to the house. Access to you. Mom and Dad weren’t even married yet, and he knew you’d be there in that crib a decade later. I don’t give a shit what other demons do or what creatures they can’t get along with for more than five minutes. We don’t know what Gabe is, we don’t know what his motivations are, and we don’t have any reason to believe a single word he’s ever said.”
Sam’s fox eyes were narrow and dangerous, his entire body tight with defensive anger. “What if his motivations are just that he cares about me?”
“You start believing in Disney fairy tales when I wasn’t lookin’, Sammy?”
“Dammit, Dean!” Sam flared. Abraxas let out a whine from below the table and Sam put a hand down on the back of his neck to calm him. “I’m serious! He’s never given me a reason to not trust him, and he’s been open with me about what he is or isn’t allowed to say-”
“Good liars don’t have audible tells, Sam,” Dean countered, his tone dropping from hard and agitated to obdurate and reasonable. “And you’ve never seen his face in full light. Who knows how many clues you’ve missed because you can’t get a good look at his face?”
The truth struck home. Sam sat back, his expression sullen as the fact that he didn’t have a fair counterargument left him feeling childish and petulant.
Dean recognized the signs of Sam’s debate defenses being breached and seized on it. “It’s obvious that you’ve got what feels like a really good thing going here, Sammy, and God only knows how much nobody in our family has ever liked being wrong about something. But you’re too smart for this. You know what’s wrong with this picture, or you wouldn’t be trying so hard to convince me that you’ve already got it covered. So…” He shrugged and trailed off.
For long minutes, the kitchen was silent. They finished their breakfast without looking at each other, Abraxas staying curled up beneath the table waiting for a sign that all was well again. When Dean stood to put his plate and cutlery in the sink, Sam finally spoke. “What do you want me to do?”
Dean stilled, not looking at Sam and letting his hands grip the edge of the counter around the sink. “You know what you need to do, little brother.”
“What happens between us if I don’t?”
The words struck like arrows at the base of Dean’s spine. He fought not to turn and rage at his brother; long experience told him that, in the end, it would do no more good with Sam than it ever had with their father. “Aw, Hell, Sammy: you ain’t gettin’ an ultimatum outta me. You call, I’ll come running just like always. You’re the only real family I got.” Drawing in his courage, he turned and leaned back against the cabinet, crossing his arms as he looked at Sam. “You gotta make this choice on your own. But just remember that if you leave things alone and it comes back to bite us in the ass, it won’t be on me.”
Staring up at his brother, at the rock that had been the center of his world for as long as he could remember, Sam could only nod in understanding as sick misery started to gather in his throat.
Dean nodded back, wishing he didn’t feel like he should hate himself for making Sam face up to reality. “Okay, then.”
* * *
May 4, 2004
The unthinkable had finally happened: Dean Winchester had broken a promise to his little brother.
He’d spent most of their adolescence threatening to get Sam so raging drunk on his twenty-first birthday that he’d be pissing pure tequila, his jade eyes sparkling with hints of the mayhem he was plotting. Sam hadn’t actually wanted to let him go through with it, but Dean was Dean, and he’d secretly looked forward to the idea of seeing whether or not he could go shot for shot with his big brother in a bar with the crowd cheering them on.
But Dean’s distrust of Gabe was like a leech on the brothers’ relationship, draining away everything but the tension that crackled whenever Dean asked if Sam had any new information. He never specified about what. Sam never had anything new to report. And their final words to each other were always stilted in the wake of it.
Dean had come for his birthday, of course: no force of Heaven or Earth could have kept him away. But he’d taken a motel room rather than agreeing to stay at the apartment as he had at his own birthday. He’d taken Sam out to a bar, where Jess had met them with a good dozen of his Stanford friends. Dean had charmed them all and Sam had gotten so drunk from all of the rounds that people kept buying him that he was barely able to stay upright under his own power by the time the party had broken up.
But he hadn’t been drunk enough to miss Dean pulling the old “beer chaser” trick and therefore staying more or less sober all night. Or that Dean had pawned getting Sam home off on Jess rather than risk a run-in with Gabe at the apartment.
Drunk birthday sex with Gabe had been great consolation, but all Sam could think about while he was sweating out the hangover the next morning, and the entire day and night since, was that this was how it would be from now on: Dean would show up for the obligatory family celebrations, but the carefree joy that he’d always brought to the time they spent together wouldn’t come with him. His protective nature and his paranoia over the continuing mystery of Yellow Eyes would never let Dean ignore the fact that Gabe wasn’t human. Wouldn’t let him overlook the fact that Sam was willing to turn a blind eye to how little he really knew about the creature that shared his life.
It wasn’t fair. Moving into the penthouse with Gabe had let Sam effectively shake off any pursuit by the demons that had tried to infiltrate his life, and Sam quietly rebelled at the notion that Gabe had ever lied to him. For all that there were answers Gabe had carefully avoided giving about his true nature, Sam had never heard any hint of falsehood in the things his lover was willing to say.
*Good liars don’t have audible tells, Sam.*
They were lying together in bed; Gabe was asleep beside him, his breath soft and his body lax in repose. He tended to sleep when Sam did, and wouldn’t hear of Sam trying to change his circadian rhythms so that they could be awake together all night no matter how guilty Sam always felt about wasting any of their precious few hours together on slumber.
“…you’ve never seen his face in full light. Who knows how many clues you’ve missed because you can’t get a good look at his face?”
He remembered the night of their fight so clearly: remembered Gabe’s broken voice as he’d described wanting things he could never have with Sam. They’d sounded true. They’d felt true and still did. And yet the best lies are always salted with a few grains of truth. Their mother’s secrets and evasions had taught both he and Dean that long ago.
“… you’re too smart for this. You know what’s wrong with this picture…”
Sam couldn’t stop staring down at Gabe’s face, making out what few lines and features he could in the darkness. It was a beautiful face; he was sure of that. The face of someone who could surely have had whomever he wanted. He’d made it plain that he wanted Sam. The ‘why’ behind that want had never been particularly clear.
“You know what you need to do, little brother.”
Abraxas was at the foot of the bed, curled up in a basket. Over the past year, it had taken time and patience to get the puppy to stay there when it was time for bed, especially when the last thing either of his masters did once in bed was sleep, but somehow it had been managed. Brax woke when either of them moved from the bed, but he didn’t scamper up into the nest of silk sheets uninvited anymore.
Sliding from them now, Sam was sure the dog could smell the complex knot of emotion that was making every heartbeat feel like a sledgehammer against his ribs. Abraxas looked up, tracking Sam’s movements in the darkness, as Sam forced himself the few short paces to the doorway of the bedroom.
Pausing for a moment, he looked back across the space between them. He could see the form in the bed, not quite shapeless in the black. Could see in his mind’s eye the phantoms of one hundred nights’ lovemaking, could hear the echoes of quiet laughter and murmured endearments. He could still taste the salt of Gabe’s body on his lips as his tongue flickered out to wet them in hesitation. Could still feel the way the raised scar on his hip throbbed in the wake of their last orgasm together, the two explosions practically simultaneous.
He and Gabe often reached their climaxes together. Their bodies had been in tune since the night they’d first met nearly two years ago. Sam had just thought it was chemistry, kismet, the unquantifiable synergy of pheromones and psychology that made up unslakeable lust. Now, he couldn’t be sure.
Except that wasn’t really fair. It wasn’t fair to blame it all on Dean’s reaction to the news that Gabe wasn’t human. Not when he’d had the same reaction himself after the scar had been seared into his skin. His doubts predated Dean’s. Dean’s reaction simply didn’t let Sam ignore them anymore.
One palm found the wall, sliding up the smooth paint until he found the cool plastic of the switch plate. His fingers stilled, his eyes never leaving the bed where his lover lay sleeping, unaware of anything beyond the residual warmth from lovemaking and Sam’s body.
“There are no rainbows in the darkness, Sam.”
He found himself answering the memory, his voice low and hoarse with uncertainty. “Then let there be light.”
Sam’s fingers pushed the light switch up.
Instantly, the bulbs in the fixture in the ceiling flared to life, bathing the room in a white glow that scoured the shadows from Sam’s eyes. Abraxas was on his feet in an instant, uncertain of what was happening and letting out a questioning whine even as Sam hissed and squinted, his eyes unprepared for the sudden change in lighting. In the handful of heartbeats that it took for Sam’s vision to adjust, he thought that what he was seeing was just a trick, an afterimage of the flare against his corneas. It wasn’t.
This wasn’t just light. This was power: a palpable aura of energy that seemed to have a life of its own, shining out and folding back and winding around the form of his lover. Gabe had woken the instant the circuit closed, but he sat up slowly, the aura growing larger and more radiant with every movement he made. The halo surrounding him shimmered and flickered like sunlight on water, dancing in Sam’s eyes as Gabe’s met them.
Those almond-shaped eyes, with the crinkles at the corners that Sam kissed when they were feeling playful. Those eyes were gold, amber, a sunset on the ocean. Sam got lost in the color in them, the life, wondering how they could ever have been so effectively masked by the perpetual darkness in which he and Gabe had conducted their affair for so long. They were so alive and warm and expressive, shimmering and full…
… of sadness. Of regret. Of grief so keen it shocked Sam from his internal rhapsody.
“Sam.” That gentle voice bore no mockery now, no sarcasm or joy. It was as full of regret as those glorious eyes, even as Sam began to register more. Began to notice the way the short, silken hair that he loved to run his fingers through wasn’t just the sandy-blonde he’d always supposed it to be based on how moonlight washed it out, but sun-kissed sand and gold like the beach just before the sun went down. The way the living shield of power surrounding Gabe seemed to sweep out even as he watched, flaring up and away from Gabe’s back like a great mantle of wings.
Wings… halo… the words Sam’s mind was supplying to describe what he saw started registering, and if he hadn’t been transfixed by what he was seeing, he would have recoiled in shock. “Gabriel?”
A sad smile. “That’s what my Father named me.”
Horror started to crawl up Sam’s throat, chasing words of apology, of regret and rescission towards his lips. He took a step, started to reach out to his lover, his angel, to try and stop what was coming…
“I was right,” the Archangel Gabriel told him. With every word, choral notes seemed to hum through the halo of power, rainbows dancing from the opalescent wings that it formed at his back. “You’re even more gorgeous in the light… brighter than the Morning Star.”
Sam opened his mouth, tried to speak again, his hand fumbling for the switch behind him…
And then the bulbs in the ceiling fixture burst. Sam flung himself forward to protect Brax from any glass that might spray out, the dog screaming his displeasure and fright.
When Sam finally sat up, the room was once again plunged into darkness. Abraxas was whining in anxiety and licking Sam’s face. And the bed beside them was empty.
Chapter Six