Team Free Everything
This is for the lovely Avani (queen-of-carven-stone) to help alleviate her Gadreel blues. This is completely irreverent and totally frivolous; I’ve tried to keep the angst to a bare minimum. Aaand it might be the start of a series, although I must warn you: I’m notoriously bad at keeping these promises.
Summary: Sam, Castiel, and Gadreel team up for a mission of a lifetime.
Warnings: Set directly after 9.23, so SPOILERS for the same. Some swearing. Lots of silliness. The narrative jumps back and forth a bit.
Team Free Everything
Twenty minutes after Sam speaks the last word of the summoning ritual, Crowley strolls into the dungeon. With him is Dean, tall and alive, his eyes inky-black.
Dean blinks, says, “Sammy, stop.”
Sam makes a deal anyway.
-
“We should give him a nickname,” Castiel says, thoughtfully.
Sam looks up from his laptop, but it’s Gadreel who speaks first. “You aren’t talking about… me?”
“Of course, if we were to follow precedent,” Castiel continues, “that would mean we call you ‘Gad’. But that sounds too close to ‘God’, and we know fully well the consequences of that kind of blasphemy, don’t we?” And now Castiel honest-to-god winks.
Gadreel stares.
Sam stifles a laugh behind his hand.
“I was once called ‘Zeke’,” Gadreel ventures. “Perhaps, Dreel? Dree?”
“Dree seems to suit the purpose,” Castiel decides. “What do you think, Sam? Sam? Sam, what’s the matter?”
“He appears to be choking on his oral secretions,” Gadreel observes.
“Well put, Dree,” Castiel says.
-
If there’s one thing Crowley wants more than anything else, it’s maintenance of the status quo.
(In the good old days, Crowley always says, demons were demons and angels were angels and everything was a clumsy metaphor for the evils of capitalism, not one for uprooting it.)
Sam offers to put every single angel on the planet back in Heaven, as long as Crowley ensures that Dean never enters Hell. He even offers to bully the undecided demons back into Crowley’s corner by flashing his ‘Lucifer’s vessel’ card. Angels can’t fly back down, and the demons would be under Crowley’s exclusive control again.
Crowley says yes more out of surprise than anything.
(I’ll have you know that it is exactly what I’d planned for Sam to say, Crowley would later insist.)
-
“Our first order of business,” Sam announces, “is figuring out where to start. Thousands of angels fell all over the world, and it’s very possible that there are-”
“We should decide on a team name,” Castiel says.
“Cas-”
“I only say this,” Castiel says, shrinking ever-so-slightly in the face of Sam’s glare, “because having a banner under which everybody unites will only make our work easier.” He brightens. “It would be like Dumbledore’s Army.”
“I’ve read that,” Gadreel says. “But that would require the existence of a Dumbledore, which harkens to your earlier mention of mistakes and blasphemy.”
“I might have to quote you a few books,” Castiel says tightly, “on the difference between analogy and-”
“Can we just-” Sam sighs. “All right. Team name.”
“Sam, Cas and Dree,” Gadreel offers.
Sam says (with what he thinks is admirable self-restraint), “Something that doesn’t sound like an 80s pop band would be nice.”
“Team Free Everything,” Castiel says with a wide grin.
Sam can’t help but smile.
-
Dean wants to leave about an hour after Crowley disappears.
It’s an awkward one hour to be sure, where neither of them trust themselves to say something that they might regret in the future. It’s when Sam starts, “Well, demon, huh? Welcome to the club-” that Dean slaps his hands against his thighs and gets up. “I gotta go, Sam,” he says.
Sam blinks. “Where?” he says, then winces, because that came out sounding wrong (everything came out sounding wrong when he spoke to his brother).
“Anywhere that’s not designed to kill me,” Dean says with a wry smile.
“But Dean-”
“You just ensured that I can’t be exorcised.” His eyes flash pitch-black, then he turns to walk out the door.
“Dean-”
“I’ll be fine, Sammy!”
“Dean, listen-”
“I’m not going to-woah!” Dean stops like he’s hit an invisible barrier, and falls back on his rear.
“-there’s a Devil’s Trap under the carpet,” Sam says, then sighs.
-
Two days after Dean leaves, Castiel arrives with Gadreel.
“It was a failsafe that Metatron wrote into my story,” Gadreel says breathlessly. “In trying to ensure that I don’t actually die for the cause and incite rebellion among the angels, he only ensured that I can pretend to die for the cause over and over again!”
Sam stares.
“Fucking godmodder,” Castiel says.
Finis