[SPN] faith is a series of complications (6/16; fifth act)
V: fifth act-everything we talked about yesterday.
“Hey, Winchesters! Time to pack up your bags.”
Dean looked up from the book he had been staring at for the last half hour, the expression on his face about as lost as Sam’s own, as the brothers stared at Gabriel who looked far too pleased for his tastes. After having to deal with Gabriel so many times already, Dean knew that the look on his face now was most likely not going to be anything good for either of them.
Being the more level-headed one between them, Sam was the one who decided to ask the inevitable question. “Are we supposed to be going somewhere, Gabriel?”
The archangel rolled his eyes. “Duh.”
The brothers exchanged looks with each other once more; Dean turned and narrowed his eyes at Gabriel, voice curt as he spoke. “And just where are we going? Disneyland?”
“A good idea-” Gabriel started, grinning in amusement at the twin glares he got in response to that, “-but as much as I would wish to fulfill your childhood dreams, that’s not what we’re going to do. We’re going to visit an old friend of mine.”
Okay, now this was just starting to get weird. “Why the hell are we going to visit your friend?” Last time he checked, Gabriel had left a rather bad impression with the pagans, what with him being in his ‘private witness protection’ crap and all that. Of course, he had also died for it, so Dean wasn’t exactly certain where that placed the archangel for the moment.
As if having read his mind (which should be impossible, since Gabriel hadn’t recovered yet), Gabriel only rolled his eyes again, shaking his head. “Because like you guys, my friend doesn’t want Purgatory messing around with the world, so my friend’s offered to help. But before that, we need to pay a little visit.” There was a pause, and then the archangel almost added on as an afterthought. “Cas is going to bring us, not that he’s too happy about it.”
Sam blinked, seemingly confused with that fact. “He’s unhappy? Why?” And Dean had to agree with that question too-after all, if what Gabriel said was true then it meant that Cas had help, right? So why wasn’t he happy about it?
Gabriel only shrugged. “Beats me,” he said in a way that was far too casual, and now Dean was suspecting that the archangel had something to do with this. But then again, if Gabriel was the one who did this and it made Cas unhappy… just what was going on now?
Still, if the archangel was offering help when they had nothing, then there wasn’t much else they could do but to accept said help. “Okay, Gabriel. When are we leaving?”
The archangel smiled in a way that made Dean want to bash things for the sole reason of how fucking complacent it looked. “As soon as Castiel arrives.”
Sam blinked again, looking at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall. “It’s two in the morning, Gabriel.”
“Exactly.”
Dean really wanted to hit the asshole now.
Castiel arrived with little fanfare an hour later, looking none too pleased as he appeared in the middle of the kitchen (Dean was just glad he didn’t have anything in his mouth at that moment) and instantly laid his gaze on Gabriel, displeasure curling at the corner of his lips. “Gabriel.”
“Guilty as charged,” the archangel easily replied, taking a swig from one of the beers he swiped from Sam (to both of the humans’ displeasure). “Can we go now? Don’t want to keep my pal waiting.”
The lesser angel hardly seemed pleased by the fact that Gabriel had just shrugged him off-yeah, there was something going on between them, Dean was certain of that now-and the lines around his mouth tightened, but Cas didn’t say anything else and only went with a curt nod. “Where are we going?”
Gabriel finished the last of his beer before getting up from the chair he had sprawled himself over, tucking his hands into the pockets of his pants. “You just do the driving, and I’ll do the leading.”
“You can do that?” Dean asked, still not certain at all if he could trust the archangel-it was hard to forget the asshole who killed him a thousand times.
The archangel shrugged again. “Angel thing. So you ready, boys?”
Sam picked up the duffel bag he had put together. “As much as we’ll ever be.”
“Great.” Gabriel grinned and glanced at Castiel. “You’re up, Cas.”
Cas nodded and instantly reached out for the two brothers; Dean only had a moment to notice that Gabriel was reaching out for Castiel at the same time, before the scene of Bobby’s room vanished and they all popped back into existence at the end of a short flight of stairs. The lift in front of them chimed the moment they appeared, the doors sliding open as a buxom Chinese lady stepped out, giving the foursome a strange look before she turned and headed to the door of her place. Dean blinked, getting used to the sudden sunlight that had replaced the night sky (did they go forward in time, or something?) as he looked around, a bit curious about the spot that Cas had dropped them. If they were visiting somebody, weren’t they just going to pop into the place?
“Just up the stairs, guys,” went the voice of the archangel as he cut Dean off from his thoughts, making his way up the stairs. Dean sent a look over to Sam, who only shrugged and followed behind; without much of a choice in the matter, he went along as well, climbing up the stairs with Cas being the last one to reach the top.
It took only a few more steps after that before they reached their destination; Gabriel turned to the left at the top landing, taking only about another five steps or so before they arrived at the doorway. It looked pretty ordinary by all means, and the potted plants that stood at the edge of the corridor where they were standing currently swayed with a passing breeze, bringing a pleasing scent along with it.
Dean blinked. “Well, this seems like a pretty cozy place.”
Neither Cas and Gabriel didn’t seem to agree though. The archangel was looking at the plants and frowning at them, while Cas looked up at the half-faded paper decorations that were hanging from above. Sam followed the younger angel’s gaze, eyes widening slightly as the gears clicked into place in that giant nerd head of his.
“Dean,” he started in an incredulous tone of voice. “They’re Enochian.”
“What?” And yeah, now he was going to look up too and he wasn’t all too brushed up on his angel language but fuck, he could make out one or two of those paper cuttings. How could somebody even cut out Enochian with paper and let it hang like that?
The surprises didn’t end there, as Cas narrowed his eyes even more and added on. “The ceiling has a Devil’s Trap hidden in it.”
“Done in-done with coke,” Gabriel breathed out now that he was looking up to squint at the ceiling too, and Dean wasn’t sure how he should exactly feel about that. “I just hope there’s no banishing sigil hidden here too.”
“There’s one on the back of this door,” replied an amused, almost female sounding voice behind them. The four turned around and the Winchesters were both left staring at the rather unimpressive sight of a (very decidedly, even with the deep not-so-female voice) female teenager wearing loose shorts and a ratty cotton shirt, that looked like it was most likely one size too big for her and worn one too many times. Her skin was slightly tanned, and the light of the sun gleamed off unruly (even though it was tied up into a ponytail) shoulder-length green hair that had streaks of white flying about wildly, along with a crop of it bouncing at her forehead. Her eyes were of the deepest shade of green, sparkling like emeralds as the girl looked over at Gabriel and grinned toothily. “No worries, I’m not going to use it on either of you guys.”
“That would kind of defeat the purpose of the visit,” Dean muttered under his breath in response-the words earned him a sharp jab in the ribs from Sam, who glared at him pointedly.
The girl only let out a small laugh. “There’s a point,” she agreed, stepping back from the doorway so that the four could enter. “Come in, make yourselves at home. You guys picked the right time to show up-the granny just went out.”
Dean looked at Sam and mouthed a questioning ‘granny?’ in confusion, but the younger Winchester only shrugged in the universal gesture of ‘don’t ask me, I don’t have a clue’. Dean punched Sam on the arm in response to that and mouthed the usual ‘Bitch’ as he walked past his brother and settled himself on the couch closest to the door.
“Jerk,” Sam gritted out in a delayed response seconds later when he came to sit beside his brother, letting out a surprised shout when a hiss sounded and apparently the furry cushion that Sam had almost sat down on was actually a very disgruntled cat.
“Don’t mind the idiot,” the girl went with an idle wave of her hand, as she stuck her tongue out at the fleeing feline. “Bast’s just having a bad week-ah, Coyote! You’re back.”
There wasn’t even a second for the Winchesters to process the fact that they had just met Bast when a larger-than-life Siberian Husky padded into their vision from nowhere, a plastic bag hanging from his jaws which the girl took care of, grinning when she pulled out the bag of cola candies that had been inside and gave the canine a scratch behind its ears before sending it off in the direction of where Bast had fled.
Sam looked at Dean now, his expression incredulous as he whispered out and yeah, Dean could sense an oncoming nerd attack on the way now. “Bast? Coyote? They’re practically ancient, Dean.”
“They’re old friends of mine,” the girl replied and Sam jumped, obviously not having expected to be heard. The reaction only made her laugh, opening the packet of cola candies and extended it towards the brothers. “Want some?”
“Uh-” Sam started, not quite sure what to say, but Gabriel quickly beat the younger Winchester to the punch and was grabbing a handful of sweets for himself.
“I’ve been having a craving for them, thanks.”
“No prob,” the girl grinned again, now extending the pack towards the stone-faced Castiel. “How ‘bout you, angel? They’re pretty good.”
Castiel didn’t look entirely convinced, but Gabriel’s pigging out was more than enough to voice out the archangel’s approval of the treats and so the angel allowed himself to take a few. With both the angels accepting, Sam and Dean didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t and so grabbed some as well, and Dean couldn’t help but make a surprised sound at the rich and sweet taste of coke that flooded the taste buds on his tongue. Okay, he had to admit: these sweets really weren’t that bad at all.
“Alright!” the girl suddenly started after a minute, the abruptness of her voice almost making Dean choke on his sweet (Sam slapped him hard on the back just to make sure that it wasn’t happening). “Now that we’re all finally settled down and not paranoid enough to murder each other, I guess we can know each other on a first name basis.” That said, she looked across the room, gazing at all four of them before pointing at Dean and moving to each one of them, ticking off their names as she passed each one. “Dean, Sam, Gabe, Cas, Loki.” The last name was said with a thumb jab towards herself, and Sam’s eyes widened when that happened.
“Loki?” he repeated, and Dean wondered if he could smack his brother for being such a damned parrot at times.
Loki grinned, nodding in acknowledgement. “That’s what you guys can call me; it’s great to meet you.”
“There cannot be two Lokis at one time,” Cas chose that moment to cut in, a hint of confusion just audible within that deadpan tone of his. Beside Sam, Gabriel sighed in a way which Dean could easily relate to. Little brothers, sometimes bring way more embarrassment than you wanted to admit.
The girl only laughed once more, somehow finding amusement in the angel’s words. “Well, technically Gabriel doesn’t belong in this world anymore since he died here-” and Dean couldn’t ignore the minor bitchface that Gabriel made there, or the almost unnoticeable flinch that Cas did “-so the Loki spot is still kinda lacking, if you know what I mean.” She shrugged, ponytail whipping along with the action. “I’m just filling in until there’s a proper guy for the position.”
Dean furrowed his eyebrows, not very convinced at the way that answer sounded to him. “You can just fill in god positions like that?”
Loki only grinned again, and this time it was one of those mysterious smiles that practically screamed ‘I know something that you don’t’ and mostly just made Dean want to punch things (hopefully faces). “Just this one.”
Gabriel interrupted before Dean could respond; doing what was most likely the most fake clearing of the throat ever as the archangel looked over to Loki in a way that suggested… respect? Uncertainty? Dean wasn’t too sure what to make of the look that was now on the shorter man’s face. Whatever it meant though, it was something Dean couldn’t so easily put away-Gabriel was a freaking archangel after all, and here he was looking at some pagan god like she could kill him with a thought or something. Whoever the kid was, she had something that even somebody like Gabriel was wary about; that thought alone unsettled him.
“So… Loki,” he started-and yeah, there was definitely something unsettling about this; it was hard to miss the way the name came out so strangely on Gabriel’s tongue, as if he was unused to the name or something which certainly didn’t make any sense if this girl was supposed to be his ‘old friend’. “Since you agreed to meet us here, I guess that means you’re okay with it?”
“Hm?” Loki returned with a blink, head tilted in a way that almost resembled Cas’ trademark headtilt as she glanced towards the archangel and then broke into another grin, shrugging. “Nah, I just wanted to see how you were doing. Almost recovered?”
Gabriel blinked back in response, for once at a loss for words (Dean only wished he had something that could capture this moment properly) as he stared for a moment before shaking himself out from his pause, stumbling momentarily over his words. “Yeah, almost. Cas is helping me.” He looked over to Cas for a second once he said that, an action which made Dean frown a bit and wonder if something was going on without his knowledge-not that he wanted to know everything that was going on, but this was Cas; he was important to him. He was family.
Would be family, no matter what happened.
Loki nodded in acknowledgement to the archangel’s words, the expression on her face thoughtful as the teenager lapsed into contemplation. Dean and Sam only continued to look at her as Gabriel returned to eating his sweets, nudging Castiel to try one as well. “It’s really good, Cas.”
“They’re just sweets, Gabriel.”
“But they’re really good sweets, and it’d be a shame if you didn’t have one.”
Castiel still didn’t seem to be convinced, but relented all the same and opened one for himself, popping it into his mouth. Gabriel grinned when he saw the other angel’s eyes going wide in a way that could only mean surprise. “Told you it was good.”
“I would be losing my touch if it wasn’t,” Loki spoke up once more, smirking a bit at the stares she received back in turn for that comment, and Dean was the one who pulled out the question.
“You fucking mojo’d the candy?”
The girl rolled her eyes. “If I did, all four of you would be in bed humping one another right now-” She effortlessly ignored the choking sounds everyone made in response, the smirk on her face growing just a bit wider as she went on without pause. “-but I’m no sex god, and it’s probably not a good idea to sear this kid’s eyes even if she reads gay porn on a regular basis.”
The brothers stared in shock, Castiel in a way that suggested confusion, and Gabriel just gave Loki an incredulous look. “You’re in a vessel?”
Loki shrugged. “Why not? She asked, I questioned, she agreed. It’s a win-win situation.”
Neither Dean and Sam weren’t all that comforted knowing this (gay porn aside, which was just wrong), while Gabriel simply frowned again, quietly considering this new piece of information. Cas, as socially inept as ever, only tilted his head to the side and eyed Loki with some scrutiny. “Pagan gods have no need for a vessel,” he said, voice as flat and as matter-of-fact as always.
Again, the girl rolled her shoulders in the gesture of a shrug. “I am a Trickster. No sense following rules all the time, right? Besides,” she added on, grinning once more. “Kid’s all but squealing at how she’s finally seeing the Wincesters for herself.”
The brothers both whipped their heads around to stare at Loki as if she had grown a second head, while Gabriel snorted and laughed out loud, slapping a hand against his knee as he chortled out in-between breaths. “Wincesters. Oh, that’s a good one.”
Cas only frowned, not quite getting the joke. “I do not understand what is so funny about getting Dean and Sam’s surnames wrong.”
Sam made one of his epic bitchfaces (#110, better translated to ‘oh god not this again why is this happening to me’) while Dean glanced over at the angel, mumbling out to him while both Loki and Gabriel were currently busy laughing their asses off. “You don’t want to know Cas, trust me.” He did make a mental note to punch the shit out of Chuck if he ever saw the prophet again-underground series his ass; this was just getting way too fucking out of hand.
Fortunately Loki recovered from her amusement soon enough, although she was still wiping away the tears that had formed in her eyes while she managed out in-between amused huffs of laughter. “Wincesters, ha… going to save that for the books, I think.”
Dean scowled. “Can we just move this conversation along?”
“As soon as you and your sasquatch of a brother are done making doe eyes at each other,” Gabriel returned, bursting into laughter once more along with Loki, and Sam’s bitchface swiftly evolved (the standard #26 ‘your immaturity is stupid and I don’t know why I even bother putting up with you’) from the one he already wore.
“Okay, okay,” the girl finally managed after a few more moments of choking up with laughter (Dean had a passing wish that she could choke on her own breath and die on it, but then remembered that there was a real human in there too). Loki straightened herself, putting out the best expression of neutrality she could manage even if Dean could clearly see the mask slipping off at any time, the corners of her lips constantly twitching as she looked between the other three not Gabriel. “Gabriel already told me most of what’s going on, and I already got the message passing around. There’s going to be a meeting tomorrow, and you guys are going to be the guest-of-honours. Does that comfort you?”
“If by ‘guest-of-honour’ you mean ‘being the main course’, then no.” Dean couldn’t really forget about the incident at Elysian Fields. If there were so many pagan gods going to be attending, then how many humans were they going to take and eat for this event?
Loki rolled her eyes once more, although she almost seemed amused. “No, no humans will be killed and/or scarified for this meeting. You have my word on it.” There was a pause as she frowned a bit and then added an afterthought. “Some guys won’t be happy about it, but eh. They’ll have to deal. S’just a meeting anyway.”
Dean wasn’t sure at all if he could trust this strange god inhabiting some teenager girl’s body (who wasn’t even hot, but that wasn’t the point), but since Loki hadn’t done anything to deserve his distrust Dean supposed he could only place whatever faith he could trudge up for her. If anything, at least Gabriel seemed to respect her, and Gabriel respecting anybody was a pretty big thing. Dean supposed he didn’t have too much to lose at this point. With that in mind, he nodded to agree with the girl’s words.
Instantly Loki grinned, her emerald eyes sparkling with something that almost seemed like accomplishment. “Great. I’ll pick you guys up tomorrow, so don’t worry about being late or lost. I’ll tell Gabe before I pop in, so don’t worry about me randomly ninjaing in.”
“Well, that is if I tell them,” Gabriel added with a grin that never spoke well.
The girl rolled her eyes again. “Don’t be such a constant dick, Gabriel.”
“Hey, it’s been a while, okay? Let a guy have his fun.”
“Uh-huh,” Loki returned with a snort, putting it in a way that was completely disbelieving and Dean couldn’t help but grin a bit at the epic Gabriel bitchface that the girl got in return. Yeah, maybe she wasn’t all that bad after all.
Castiel decided to step into the conversation then, saving Gabriel from more unintentional humiliation. “I assume we are done here?”
The girl blinked for a moment before it clicked. “Pretty much,” she replied, snapping her fingers as an afterthought and four cards appeared in her hand. She gave them a glance before holding them out towards the foursome, continuing on. “Here, one card for each of you. You’re going to need it.”
All four men (and men-shaped beings) exchanged glances with one another at that, silent for a moment before Gabriel moved to swipe the cards from Loki’s hand and tossed one to each of the other three. Both Sam and Dean caught theirs easily, while Castiel juggled with his for a second before he held it properly in his hand, studying it just as Dean did the same. It was a plain, blank card with nothing but a horizontal stripe printed across the lower section; he turned it back and saw the same design. “What the heck is this?” he asked, raising his head back up and arched one eyebrow towards Loki.
“Transit cards,” she replied, smiling. “Cars aren’t as handy as you might think here, so you all are going to have to stick with public transport.”
Sam frowned, unsure what to make of the girl’s choice of words. “Here?” he echoed, raising one eyebrow himself.
“Mmn-hmn,” Loki returned. “The transport system here is pretty decent, so you guys should have some fun riding into the city. Lunch hour’s over, so the crowd shouldn’t be too bad.”
Okay, now he was really getting confused. Dean gave Sam a glance before returning his gaze back to Loki, asking the million-dollar question. “So as in ‘here’, just exactly where the hell are we?”
“Singapore,” Dean muttered under his breath, as one very disgruntled human, one not-so-disgruntled but more interested human, one rather confused angel and one very amused archangel stepped back out into the sunshine, after Loki had cheerily sent them out from the apartment. “Seriously? Singapore?” Actually, Dean had next to no idea that this country even existed-Asia was a continent that Dean rarely concerned himself with, unless it involved bustyasianbeauties.com. That website did not have any Singapore people on it, last time he checked.
Beside him Sam seemed much more interested at their current location, casting his gaze around the neighbourhood and raising both his eyebrows at the sights he was taking in. “It doesn’t seem like such a bad place.”
“You have no idea, Gigantor,” Gabriel piped up from Dean’s other side, teeth crunching down noisily on a cola candy. “This here’s the one and only bona-fide neutral territory for any self-respecting pagan god. Nobody’s crazy enough to try and dominate this little country.”
Castiel, from behind them all: “Why?”
Dean watched as Gabriel turned around to regard Cas with a glance, silent for a second before he turned back to shrug. “This place’s the prime definition of meshed up wonderland. Too many cultures and beliefs spread across such a tiny spot of land. I mean, yeah, the five million or so people living here make up for it-but it’s not enough, you know? Everything’s too cramped up.” The archangel crunched up the last of the sweet in his mouth before gulping it down. “Too many powers in one small area. No use fighting each other, unless we want a full-scale riot on our hands. So when this place was noted, Kali and the others decided to make this the one true neutral land for all of us.”
The elder Winchester blinked at the answer. Huh. Who knew that the pagans could manage something like that? You learned something new every day, it seemed. Sam, now much more interested (and Dean could see the geek coming out now), made his way over towards Gabriel and continued to question the archangel with several other questions that Dean didn’t bother to listen to because it wasn’t his concern.
“It’s been a long while since I last set foot here,” Gabriel admitted, when Sam asked him about the last time he was here. “Back then, I think the trains just started or something. I don’t really keep track of time.” There was a pause. “Oh, wait, I remember. It was back in ’92. The country just banned chewing gum for the lamest reasons. I snapped some gum over because of that. Got some pretty hilarious results.”
“How the heck do you know about this country anyway, Sam?” Dean asked, cutting in on the conversation as he turned one eye to his brother.
Sam shrugged slightly. “Did a paper about it once. It’s got a bit of a reputation for regularly using the death penalty on criminals.”
Dean paused and stared. “…Seriously?”
“Uh, yeah.” Sam looked a bit uncomfortable himself now, as if just having realized the implications of his words. “Good thing we’re considered legally dead by the FBI, huh?”
“Don’t remind me,” Dean returned with a small grunt, quickening his pace down the path. “Can’t one of you just mojo us there from here?”
“She didn’t tell us where we were supposed to go to, Dean,” came Castiel’s voice, tinged with the slightest bit of his own annoyance that only became more evident when the angel transferred his question towards Gabriel. “How are we supposed to know where to go?”
The archangel only waved off the question. “We’ll know it when we see it, bro. No worries.”
Judging from the long silence that came after that, Dean supposed that Cas thought otherwise.
As it turned out, they did know where to go in the end-Gabriel found the directions sitting inside the wrapper of the last of the cola candies he had taken from Loki earlier, words written in a messy scrawl across the slip of paper. Train to EW 13, guys. From there head to Hotel Swiss Stanford. Got two rooms booked under Gabe's name.
“Guess we better follow her directions then,” the archangel went with a shrug as he led them towards the train station now in their sights. Going around in the mid-afternoon crowd wasn't too hard, and after watching a few of the commuters it was easy enough to figure out what to do with the cards that Loki had given them. Tapping at the reader the machine beeped and released the barrier, allowing Dean to go through to the other side where the trains were.
Sam followed after him, a mildly surprised look on his face as the younger Winchester turned back to glance at Gabriel now going through the barrier. “Huh. That's kind of neat.”
“I can see your geek coming out, Sammy,” Dean muttered with a roll of his eyes, watching Castiel trailing behind the rest of them. The angel looked somewhat perplexed by the machine, blue eyes still trained on it even as he went through and walked towards them.
There probably wasn't anything for him to worry about, but Dean couldn't help but ask anyway, just to be certain. “Anything wrong there, Cas?”
Castiel turned his gaze towards Dean, blinking at him once before returning his gaze to the barrier. “The system here is rather efficient,” he murmured, voice loud enough only for Dean to hear.
Dean rolled his eyes again. It figured that Cas would be about as much of a geek about this as Sam was.
One successful train ride later (minus the fact that Cas looked interested in almost everything that was happening during the ride over), Gabriel snapped them over to the hotel that Loki had indicated once they were out, reappearing at the corner of a rather finely furnished lobby. The crowd wasn't too big either, but it was busy enough that nobody really noticed the abrupt arrival of four people. Looking at all the men and women milling around in their business suits however, made Dean wonder if they should even be here; after all, they certainly had no ability to stay in any high-class fancy hotel.
Gabriel on the other hand didn't seem too concerned with the fact that they were four severely under-dressed people going about in a high-class hotel, easily tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he made his way over to the counter. After a moment of hesitance, Dean followed after the archangel, both Sam and Castiel following close behind.
“Good afternoon, miss,” the former Trickster started, a charming smile stretched across his face. “I'm here for my reservation.”
The lady at the counter hardly seemed mollified by the charm, only giving Gabriel a rather critical look before asking. “Your name, sir?”
There was a pause on Gabriel's end before he replied. “Gabriel Coyote.”
Both Sam and Dean exchanged glances at each other at the name, while Castiel made an exasperated sound. Gabriel only waved them off before returning his attention back to the receptionist who was presenting his key cards and telling the archangel the necessary information.
“Thank you, sugar,” Gabriel returned with a last sweet smile, graciously taking the cards before he returned to where Dean and the others were waiting for him. The archangel plucked out one of the cards in his hand and held it out to the elder Winchester, grinning. “Here you go, Deano. One room for you and Gigantor. Since you two need your rest, we'll just meet up at seven after both of you have your beauty sleep.”
Dean gave the card a momentary glance before letting out a grunt and taking it from Gabriel's hand. “Good to know.”
Sam let out a contented sigh as he settled on one of the beds in their hotel room. “This is a change.”
Yeah, it was a change alright-and one that Dean did not like at all. He didn't like the fact that they were in some plush hotel room provided by Gabriel's mentor, or whatever the fuck she was; he didn't like the fact that Gabriel had all but dragged them off while they had been in the middle of their research and most of all, he didn't like the fact that they were across the frickin' world. How the fuck were they even supposed to do anything here? “I don't like this, Sam.”
Sam sighed and turned his gaze towards Dean, making one of his sympathetic looks. “Yeah, I don't really like this either. But-” He glanced at the window, looking at the view of the Singapore skyline sitting so nearby. “There's really not much we can do about it.”
“We can just ask Cas to send us back,” Dean replied, running a hand through his hair and trying not to tear it out in irritation.
Sam paused for a moment. “He sure didn't seem too pleased in coming here at first, huh?”
“That's coz' Gabriel pulled a dick move and plotted behind our backs,” Dean returned, and then stopped as his mind caught up with what his next words had been. And Cas is busy with Raphael, so he doesn't have time for all this bullcrap.
Shit. Dean recalled how things had been with Cas ever since he met the angel again, and he felt a pit begin to claw open inside his stomach. Shit, wasn't that pretty much what he had been doing to Cas himself? He had never really thought about it-what with Lisa and Ben, and Sammy running around without his soul-but right now, with his last words dying on his tongue, Dean slowly connected the dots in his head.
Son of a bitch.
“Dean?” Sam started, blinking in confusion at his brother's sudden silence.
Dean quickly pulled himself out from the sudden deluge of thoughts and waved his little brother off. “It's nothing, Sammy.” Except that it was really a lot of things all of a sudden, and Dean did not want to start thinking about all of them. There was already enough crap going around at the moment, and he really did not need any more of it-especially when it all came from within. Fuck his life, seriously.
Sam, of course, could instantly tell otherwise and put on bitchface #87 ('Your constant attempts to play things off are so not working') but didn't say anything else. He did, however, let out a small sigh and turned away so that Dean could have his space. “Okay, whatever you say.” And Dean knew that this really wasn't the end of it-Sammy was onto it now, and soon his non-ending stream of questions and probes would begin. He just hoped that it'd start later rather than sooner, because he really was in no mood to start contemplating sudden revelations and stupid thoughts that refused to leave his head.
Dean made a frustrated grunt and kicked off his shoes at the foot of his bed. “Gabriel gave us time to crash, not talk about feelings and braid each other's hair. Go to bed, Sam.”
There was another disbelieving snort from his younger brother at those words, but Dean heard the mattress beside him creak under the weight that was his giant of a brother. “Night, Dean.”
“Night.” And Dean forced himself not to think of anything else after that, instead directing his focus towards sleeping. After being zapped across the world, he damned well needed his fucking rest.
Friggin' archangels.
← fourth act | sixth act →
“Hey, Winchesters! Time to pack up your bags.”
Dean looked up from the book he had been staring at for the last half hour, the expression on his face about as lost as Sam’s own, as the brothers stared at Gabriel who looked far too pleased for his tastes. After having to deal with Gabriel so many times already, Dean knew that the look on his face now was most likely not going to be anything good for either of them.
Being the more level-headed one between them, Sam was the one who decided to ask the inevitable question. “Are we supposed to be going somewhere, Gabriel?”
The archangel rolled his eyes. “Duh.”
The brothers exchanged looks with each other once more; Dean turned and narrowed his eyes at Gabriel, voice curt as he spoke. “And just where are we going? Disneyland?”
“A good idea-” Gabriel started, grinning in amusement at the twin glares he got in response to that, “-but as much as I would wish to fulfill your childhood dreams, that’s not what we’re going to do. We’re going to visit an old friend of mine.”
Okay, now this was just starting to get weird. “Why the hell are we going to visit your friend?” Last time he checked, Gabriel had left a rather bad impression with the pagans, what with him being in his ‘private witness protection’ crap and all that. Of course, he had also died for it, so Dean wasn’t exactly certain where that placed the archangel for the moment.
As if having read his mind (which should be impossible, since Gabriel hadn’t recovered yet), Gabriel only rolled his eyes again, shaking his head. “Because like you guys, my friend doesn’t want Purgatory messing around with the world, so my friend’s offered to help. But before that, we need to pay a little visit.” There was a pause, and then the archangel almost added on as an afterthought. “Cas is going to bring us, not that he’s too happy about it.”
Sam blinked, seemingly confused with that fact. “He’s unhappy? Why?” And Dean had to agree with that question too-after all, if what Gabriel said was true then it meant that Cas had help, right? So why wasn’t he happy about it?
Gabriel only shrugged. “Beats me,” he said in a way that was far too casual, and now Dean was suspecting that the archangel had something to do with this. But then again, if Gabriel was the one who did this and it made Cas unhappy… just what was going on now?
Still, if the archangel was offering help when they had nothing, then there wasn’t much else they could do but to accept said help. “Okay, Gabriel. When are we leaving?”
The archangel smiled in a way that made Dean want to bash things for the sole reason of how fucking complacent it looked. “As soon as Castiel arrives.”
Sam blinked again, looking at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall. “It’s two in the morning, Gabriel.”
“Exactly.”
Dean really wanted to hit the asshole now.
Castiel arrived with little fanfare an hour later, looking none too pleased as he appeared in the middle of the kitchen (Dean was just glad he didn’t have anything in his mouth at that moment) and instantly laid his gaze on Gabriel, displeasure curling at the corner of his lips. “Gabriel.”
“Guilty as charged,” the archangel easily replied, taking a swig from one of the beers he swiped from Sam (to both of the humans’ displeasure). “Can we go now? Don’t want to keep my pal waiting.”
The lesser angel hardly seemed pleased by the fact that Gabriel had just shrugged him off-yeah, there was something going on between them, Dean was certain of that now-and the lines around his mouth tightened, but Cas didn’t say anything else and only went with a curt nod. “Where are we going?”
Gabriel finished the last of his beer before getting up from the chair he had sprawled himself over, tucking his hands into the pockets of his pants. “You just do the driving, and I’ll do the leading.”
“You can do that?” Dean asked, still not certain at all if he could trust the archangel-it was hard to forget the asshole who killed him a thousand times.
The archangel shrugged again. “Angel thing. So you ready, boys?”
Sam picked up the duffel bag he had put together. “As much as we’ll ever be.”
“Great.” Gabriel grinned and glanced at Castiel. “You’re up, Cas.”
Cas nodded and instantly reached out for the two brothers; Dean only had a moment to notice that Gabriel was reaching out for Castiel at the same time, before the scene of Bobby’s room vanished and they all popped back into existence at the end of a short flight of stairs. The lift in front of them chimed the moment they appeared, the doors sliding open as a buxom Chinese lady stepped out, giving the foursome a strange look before she turned and headed to the door of her place. Dean blinked, getting used to the sudden sunlight that had replaced the night sky (did they go forward in time, or something?) as he looked around, a bit curious about the spot that Cas had dropped them. If they were visiting somebody, weren’t they just going to pop into the place?
“Just up the stairs, guys,” went the voice of the archangel as he cut Dean off from his thoughts, making his way up the stairs. Dean sent a look over to Sam, who only shrugged and followed behind; without much of a choice in the matter, he went along as well, climbing up the stairs with Cas being the last one to reach the top.
It took only a few more steps after that before they reached their destination; Gabriel turned to the left at the top landing, taking only about another five steps or so before they arrived at the doorway. It looked pretty ordinary by all means, and the potted plants that stood at the edge of the corridor where they were standing currently swayed with a passing breeze, bringing a pleasing scent along with it.
Dean blinked. “Well, this seems like a pretty cozy place.”
Neither Cas and Gabriel didn’t seem to agree though. The archangel was looking at the plants and frowning at them, while Cas looked up at the half-faded paper decorations that were hanging from above. Sam followed the younger angel’s gaze, eyes widening slightly as the gears clicked into place in that giant nerd head of his.
“Dean,” he started in an incredulous tone of voice. “They’re Enochian.”
“What?” And yeah, now he was going to look up too and he wasn’t all too brushed up on his angel language but fuck, he could make out one or two of those paper cuttings. How could somebody even cut out Enochian with paper and let it hang like that?
The surprises didn’t end there, as Cas narrowed his eyes even more and added on. “The ceiling has a Devil’s Trap hidden in it.”
“Done in-done with coke,” Gabriel breathed out now that he was looking up to squint at the ceiling too, and Dean wasn’t sure how he should exactly feel about that. “I just hope there’s no banishing sigil hidden here too.”
“There’s one on the back of this door,” replied an amused, almost female sounding voice behind them. The four turned around and the Winchesters were both left staring at the rather unimpressive sight of a (very decidedly, even with the deep not-so-female voice) female teenager wearing loose shorts and a ratty cotton shirt, that looked like it was most likely one size too big for her and worn one too many times. Her skin was slightly tanned, and the light of the sun gleamed off unruly (even though it was tied up into a ponytail) shoulder-length green hair that had streaks of white flying about wildly, along with a crop of it bouncing at her forehead. Her eyes were of the deepest shade of green, sparkling like emeralds as the girl looked over at Gabriel and grinned toothily. “No worries, I’m not going to use it on either of you guys.”
“That would kind of defeat the purpose of the visit,” Dean muttered under his breath in response-the words earned him a sharp jab in the ribs from Sam, who glared at him pointedly.
The girl only let out a small laugh. “There’s a point,” she agreed, stepping back from the doorway so that the four could enter. “Come in, make yourselves at home. You guys picked the right time to show up-the granny just went out.”
Dean looked at Sam and mouthed a questioning ‘granny?’ in confusion, but the younger Winchester only shrugged in the universal gesture of ‘don’t ask me, I don’t have a clue’. Dean punched Sam on the arm in response to that and mouthed the usual ‘Bitch’ as he walked past his brother and settled himself on the couch closest to the door.
“Jerk,” Sam gritted out in a delayed response seconds later when he came to sit beside his brother, letting out a surprised shout when a hiss sounded and apparently the furry cushion that Sam had almost sat down on was actually a very disgruntled cat.
“Don’t mind the idiot,” the girl went with an idle wave of her hand, as she stuck her tongue out at the fleeing feline. “Bast’s just having a bad week-ah, Coyote! You’re back.”
There wasn’t even a second for the Winchesters to process the fact that they had just met Bast when a larger-than-life Siberian Husky padded into their vision from nowhere, a plastic bag hanging from his jaws which the girl took care of, grinning when she pulled out the bag of cola candies that had been inside and gave the canine a scratch behind its ears before sending it off in the direction of where Bast had fled.
Sam looked at Dean now, his expression incredulous as he whispered out and yeah, Dean could sense an oncoming nerd attack on the way now. “Bast? Coyote? They’re practically ancient, Dean.”
“They’re old friends of mine,” the girl replied and Sam jumped, obviously not having expected to be heard. The reaction only made her laugh, opening the packet of cola candies and extended it towards the brothers. “Want some?”
“Uh-” Sam started, not quite sure what to say, but Gabriel quickly beat the younger Winchester to the punch and was grabbing a handful of sweets for himself.
“I’ve been having a craving for them, thanks.”
“No prob,” the girl grinned again, now extending the pack towards the stone-faced Castiel. “How ‘bout you, angel? They’re pretty good.”
Castiel didn’t look entirely convinced, but Gabriel’s pigging out was more than enough to voice out the archangel’s approval of the treats and so the angel allowed himself to take a few. With both the angels accepting, Sam and Dean didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t and so grabbed some as well, and Dean couldn’t help but make a surprised sound at the rich and sweet taste of coke that flooded the taste buds on his tongue. Okay, he had to admit: these sweets really weren’t that bad at all.
“Alright!” the girl suddenly started after a minute, the abruptness of her voice almost making Dean choke on his sweet (Sam slapped him hard on the back just to make sure that it wasn’t happening). “Now that we’re all finally settled down and not paranoid enough to murder each other, I guess we can know each other on a first name basis.” That said, she looked across the room, gazing at all four of them before pointing at Dean and moving to each one of them, ticking off their names as she passed each one. “Dean, Sam, Gabe, Cas, Loki.” The last name was said with a thumb jab towards herself, and Sam’s eyes widened when that happened.
“Loki?” he repeated, and Dean wondered if he could smack his brother for being such a damned parrot at times.
Loki grinned, nodding in acknowledgement. “That’s what you guys can call me; it’s great to meet you.”
“There cannot be two Lokis at one time,” Cas chose that moment to cut in, a hint of confusion just audible within that deadpan tone of his. Beside Sam, Gabriel sighed in a way which Dean could easily relate to. Little brothers, sometimes bring way more embarrassment than you wanted to admit.
The girl only laughed once more, somehow finding amusement in the angel’s words. “Well, technically Gabriel doesn’t belong in this world anymore since he died here-” and Dean couldn’t ignore the minor bitchface that Gabriel made there, or the almost unnoticeable flinch that Cas did “-so the Loki spot is still kinda lacking, if you know what I mean.” She shrugged, ponytail whipping along with the action. “I’m just filling in until there’s a proper guy for the position.”
Dean furrowed his eyebrows, not very convinced at the way that answer sounded to him. “You can just fill in god positions like that?”
Loki only grinned again, and this time it was one of those mysterious smiles that practically screamed ‘I know something that you don’t’ and mostly just made Dean want to punch things (hopefully faces). “Just this one.”
Gabriel interrupted before Dean could respond; doing what was most likely the most fake clearing of the throat ever as the archangel looked over to Loki in a way that suggested… respect? Uncertainty? Dean wasn’t too sure what to make of the look that was now on the shorter man’s face. Whatever it meant though, it was something Dean couldn’t so easily put away-Gabriel was a freaking archangel after all, and here he was looking at some pagan god like she could kill him with a thought or something. Whoever the kid was, she had something that even somebody like Gabriel was wary about; that thought alone unsettled him.
“So… Loki,” he started-and yeah, there was definitely something unsettling about this; it was hard to miss the way the name came out so strangely on Gabriel’s tongue, as if he was unused to the name or something which certainly didn’t make any sense if this girl was supposed to be his ‘old friend’. “Since you agreed to meet us here, I guess that means you’re okay with it?”
“Hm?” Loki returned with a blink, head tilted in a way that almost resembled Cas’ trademark headtilt as she glanced towards the archangel and then broke into another grin, shrugging. “Nah, I just wanted to see how you were doing. Almost recovered?”
Gabriel blinked back in response, for once at a loss for words (Dean only wished he had something that could capture this moment properly) as he stared for a moment before shaking himself out from his pause, stumbling momentarily over his words. “Yeah, almost. Cas is helping me.” He looked over to Cas for a second once he said that, an action which made Dean frown a bit and wonder if something was going on without his knowledge-not that he wanted to know everything that was going on, but this was Cas; he was important to him. He was family.
Would be family, no matter what happened.
Loki nodded in acknowledgement to the archangel’s words, the expression on her face thoughtful as the teenager lapsed into contemplation. Dean and Sam only continued to look at her as Gabriel returned to eating his sweets, nudging Castiel to try one as well. “It’s really good, Cas.”
“They’re just sweets, Gabriel.”
“But they’re really good sweets, and it’d be a shame if you didn’t have one.”
Castiel still didn’t seem to be convinced, but relented all the same and opened one for himself, popping it into his mouth. Gabriel grinned when he saw the other angel’s eyes going wide in a way that could only mean surprise. “Told you it was good.”
“I would be losing my touch if it wasn’t,” Loki spoke up once more, smirking a bit at the stares she received back in turn for that comment, and Dean was the one who pulled out the question.
“You fucking mojo’d the candy?”
The girl rolled her eyes. “If I did, all four of you would be in bed humping one another right now-” She effortlessly ignored the choking sounds everyone made in response, the smirk on her face growing just a bit wider as she went on without pause. “-but I’m no sex god, and it’s probably not a good idea to sear this kid’s eyes even if she reads gay porn on a regular basis.”
The brothers stared in shock, Castiel in a way that suggested confusion, and Gabriel just gave Loki an incredulous look. “You’re in a vessel?”
Loki shrugged. “Why not? She asked, I questioned, she agreed. It’s a win-win situation.”
Neither Dean and Sam weren’t all that comforted knowing this (gay porn aside, which was just wrong), while Gabriel simply frowned again, quietly considering this new piece of information. Cas, as socially inept as ever, only tilted his head to the side and eyed Loki with some scrutiny. “Pagan gods have no need for a vessel,” he said, voice as flat and as matter-of-fact as always.
Again, the girl rolled her shoulders in the gesture of a shrug. “I am a Trickster. No sense following rules all the time, right? Besides,” she added on, grinning once more. “Kid’s all but squealing at how she’s finally seeing the Wincesters for herself.”
The brothers both whipped their heads around to stare at Loki as if she had grown a second head, while Gabriel snorted and laughed out loud, slapping a hand against his knee as he chortled out in-between breaths. “Wincesters. Oh, that’s a good one.”
Cas only frowned, not quite getting the joke. “I do not understand what is so funny about getting Dean and Sam’s surnames wrong.”
Sam made one of his epic bitchfaces (#110, better translated to ‘oh god not this again why is this happening to me’) while Dean glanced over at the angel, mumbling out to him while both Loki and Gabriel were currently busy laughing their asses off. “You don’t want to know Cas, trust me.” He did make a mental note to punch the shit out of Chuck if he ever saw the prophet again-underground series his ass; this was just getting way too fucking out of hand.
Fortunately Loki recovered from her amusement soon enough, although she was still wiping away the tears that had formed in her eyes while she managed out in-between amused huffs of laughter. “Wincesters, ha… going to save that for the books, I think.”
Dean scowled. “Can we just move this conversation along?”
“As soon as you and your sasquatch of a brother are done making doe eyes at each other,” Gabriel returned, bursting into laughter once more along with Loki, and Sam’s bitchface swiftly evolved (the standard #26 ‘your immaturity is stupid and I don’t know why I even bother putting up with you’) from the one he already wore.
“Okay, okay,” the girl finally managed after a few more moments of choking up with laughter (Dean had a passing wish that she could choke on her own breath and die on it, but then remembered that there was a real human in there too). Loki straightened herself, putting out the best expression of neutrality she could manage even if Dean could clearly see the mask slipping off at any time, the corners of her lips constantly twitching as she looked between the other three not Gabriel. “Gabriel already told me most of what’s going on, and I already got the message passing around. There’s going to be a meeting tomorrow, and you guys are going to be the guest-of-honours. Does that comfort you?”
“If by ‘guest-of-honour’ you mean ‘being the main course’, then no.” Dean couldn’t really forget about the incident at Elysian Fields. If there were so many pagan gods going to be attending, then how many humans were they going to take and eat for this event?
Loki rolled her eyes once more, although she almost seemed amused. “No, no humans will be killed and/or scarified for this meeting. You have my word on it.” There was a pause as she frowned a bit and then added an afterthought. “Some guys won’t be happy about it, but eh. They’ll have to deal. S’just a meeting anyway.”
Dean wasn’t sure at all if he could trust this strange god inhabiting some teenager girl’s body (who wasn’t even hot, but that wasn’t the point), but since Loki hadn’t done anything to deserve his distrust Dean supposed he could only place whatever faith he could trudge up for her. If anything, at least Gabriel seemed to respect her, and Gabriel respecting anybody was a pretty big thing. Dean supposed he didn’t have too much to lose at this point. With that in mind, he nodded to agree with the girl’s words.
Instantly Loki grinned, her emerald eyes sparkling with something that almost seemed like accomplishment. “Great. I’ll pick you guys up tomorrow, so don’t worry about being late or lost. I’ll tell Gabe before I pop in, so don’t worry about me randomly ninjaing in.”
“Well, that is if I tell them,” Gabriel added with a grin that never spoke well.
The girl rolled her eyes again. “Don’t be such a constant dick, Gabriel.”
“Hey, it’s been a while, okay? Let a guy have his fun.”
“Uh-huh,” Loki returned with a snort, putting it in a way that was completely disbelieving and Dean couldn’t help but grin a bit at the epic Gabriel bitchface that the girl got in return. Yeah, maybe she wasn’t all that bad after all.
Castiel decided to step into the conversation then, saving Gabriel from more unintentional humiliation. “I assume we are done here?”
The girl blinked for a moment before it clicked. “Pretty much,” she replied, snapping her fingers as an afterthought and four cards appeared in her hand. She gave them a glance before holding them out towards the foursome, continuing on. “Here, one card for each of you. You’re going to need it.”
All four men (and men-shaped beings) exchanged glances with one another at that, silent for a moment before Gabriel moved to swipe the cards from Loki’s hand and tossed one to each of the other three. Both Sam and Dean caught theirs easily, while Castiel juggled with his for a second before he held it properly in his hand, studying it just as Dean did the same. It was a plain, blank card with nothing but a horizontal stripe printed across the lower section; he turned it back and saw the same design. “What the heck is this?” he asked, raising his head back up and arched one eyebrow towards Loki.
“Transit cards,” she replied, smiling. “Cars aren’t as handy as you might think here, so you all are going to have to stick with public transport.”
Sam frowned, unsure what to make of the girl’s choice of words. “Here?” he echoed, raising one eyebrow himself.
“Mmn-hmn,” Loki returned. “The transport system here is pretty decent, so you guys should have some fun riding into the city. Lunch hour’s over, so the crowd shouldn’t be too bad.”
Okay, now he was really getting confused. Dean gave Sam a glance before returning his gaze back to Loki, asking the million-dollar question. “So as in ‘here’, just exactly where the hell are we?”
“Singapore,” Dean muttered under his breath, as one very disgruntled human, one not-so-disgruntled but more interested human, one rather confused angel and one very amused archangel stepped back out into the sunshine, after Loki had cheerily sent them out from the apartment. “Seriously? Singapore?” Actually, Dean had next to no idea that this country even existed-Asia was a continent that Dean rarely concerned himself with, unless it involved bustyasianbeauties.com. That website did not have any Singapore people on it, last time he checked.
Beside him Sam seemed much more interested at their current location, casting his gaze around the neighbourhood and raising both his eyebrows at the sights he was taking in. “It doesn’t seem like such a bad place.”
“You have no idea, Gigantor,” Gabriel piped up from Dean’s other side, teeth crunching down noisily on a cola candy. “This here’s the one and only bona-fide neutral territory for any self-respecting pagan god. Nobody’s crazy enough to try and dominate this little country.”
Castiel, from behind them all: “Why?”
Dean watched as Gabriel turned around to regard Cas with a glance, silent for a second before he turned back to shrug. “This place’s the prime definition of meshed up wonderland. Too many cultures and beliefs spread across such a tiny spot of land. I mean, yeah, the five million or so people living here make up for it-but it’s not enough, you know? Everything’s too cramped up.” The archangel crunched up the last of the sweet in his mouth before gulping it down. “Too many powers in one small area. No use fighting each other, unless we want a full-scale riot on our hands. So when this place was noted, Kali and the others decided to make this the one true neutral land for all of us.”
The elder Winchester blinked at the answer. Huh. Who knew that the pagans could manage something like that? You learned something new every day, it seemed. Sam, now much more interested (and Dean could see the geek coming out now), made his way over towards Gabriel and continued to question the archangel with several other questions that Dean didn’t bother to listen to because it wasn’t his concern.
“It’s been a long while since I last set foot here,” Gabriel admitted, when Sam asked him about the last time he was here. “Back then, I think the trains just started or something. I don’t really keep track of time.” There was a pause. “Oh, wait, I remember. It was back in ’92. The country just banned chewing gum for the lamest reasons. I snapped some gum over because of that. Got some pretty hilarious results.”
“How the heck do you know about this country anyway, Sam?” Dean asked, cutting in on the conversation as he turned one eye to his brother.
Sam shrugged slightly. “Did a paper about it once. It’s got a bit of a reputation for regularly using the death penalty on criminals.”
Dean paused and stared. “…Seriously?”
“Uh, yeah.” Sam looked a bit uncomfortable himself now, as if just having realized the implications of his words. “Good thing we’re considered legally dead by the FBI, huh?”
“Don’t remind me,” Dean returned with a small grunt, quickening his pace down the path. “Can’t one of you just mojo us there from here?”
“She didn’t tell us where we were supposed to go to, Dean,” came Castiel’s voice, tinged with the slightest bit of his own annoyance that only became more evident when the angel transferred his question towards Gabriel. “How are we supposed to know where to go?”
The archangel only waved off the question. “We’ll know it when we see it, bro. No worries.”
Judging from the long silence that came after that, Dean supposed that Cas thought otherwise.
As it turned out, they did know where to go in the end-Gabriel found the directions sitting inside the wrapper of the last of the cola candies he had taken from Loki earlier, words written in a messy scrawl across the slip of paper. Train to EW 13, guys. From there head to Hotel Swiss Stanford. Got two rooms booked under Gabe's name.
“Guess we better follow her directions then,” the archangel went with a shrug as he led them towards the train station now in their sights. Going around in the mid-afternoon crowd wasn't too hard, and after watching a few of the commuters it was easy enough to figure out what to do with the cards that Loki had given them. Tapping at the reader the machine beeped and released the barrier, allowing Dean to go through to the other side where the trains were.
Sam followed after him, a mildly surprised look on his face as the younger Winchester turned back to glance at Gabriel now going through the barrier. “Huh. That's kind of neat.”
“I can see your geek coming out, Sammy,” Dean muttered with a roll of his eyes, watching Castiel trailing behind the rest of them. The angel looked somewhat perplexed by the machine, blue eyes still trained on it even as he went through and walked towards them.
There probably wasn't anything for him to worry about, but Dean couldn't help but ask anyway, just to be certain. “Anything wrong there, Cas?”
Castiel turned his gaze towards Dean, blinking at him once before returning his gaze to the barrier. “The system here is rather efficient,” he murmured, voice loud enough only for Dean to hear.
Dean rolled his eyes again. It figured that Cas would be about as much of a geek about this as Sam was.
One successful train ride later (minus the fact that Cas looked interested in almost everything that was happening during the ride over), Gabriel snapped them over to the hotel that Loki had indicated once they were out, reappearing at the corner of a rather finely furnished lobby. The crowd wasn't too big either, but it was busy enough that nobody really noticed the abrupt arrival of four people. Looking at all the men and women milling around in their business suits however, made Dean wonder if they should even be here; after all, they certainly had no ability to stay in any high-class fancy hotel.
Gabriel on the other hand didn't seem too concerned with the fact that they were four severely under-dressed people going about in a high-class hotel, easily tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he made his way over to the counter. After a moment of hesitance, Dean followed after the archangel, both Sam and Castiel following close behind.
“Good afternoon, miss,” the former Trickster started, a charming smile stretched across his face. “I'm here for my reservation.”
The lady at the counter hardly seemed mollified by the charm, only giving Gabriel a rather critical look before asking. “Your name, sir?”
There was a pause on Gabriel's end before he replied. “Gabriel Coyote.”
Both Sam and Dean exchanged glances at each other at the name, while Castiel made an exasperated sound. Gabriel only waved them off before returning his attention back to the receptionist who was presenting his key cards and telling the archangel the necessary information.
“Thank you, sugar,” Gabriel returned with a last sweet smile, graciously taking the cards before he returned to where Dean and the others were waiting for him. The archangel plucked out one of the cards in his hand and held it out to the elder Winchester, grinning. “Here you go, Deano. One room for you and Gigantor. Since you two need your rest, we'll just meet up at seven after both of you have your beauty sleep.”
Dean gave the card a momentary glance before letting out a grunt and taking it from Gabriel's hand. “Good to know.”
Sam let out a contented sigh as he settled on one of the beds in their hotel room. “This is a change.”
Yeah, it was a change alright-and one that Dean did not like at all. He didn't like the fact that they were in some plush hotel room provided by Gabriel's mentor, or whatever the fuck she was; he didn't like the fact that Gabriel had all but dragged them off while they had been in the middle of their research and most of all, he didn't like the fact that they were across the frickin' world. How the fuck were they even supposed to do anything here? “I don't like this, Sam.”
Sam sighed and turned his gaze towards Dean, making one of his sympathetic looks. “Yeah, I don't really like this either. But-” He glanced at the window, looking at the view of the Singapore skyline sitting so nearby. “There's really not much we can do about it.”
“We can just ask Cas to send us back,” Dean replied, running a hand through his hair and trying not to tear it out in irritation.
Sam paused for a moment. “He sure didn't seem too pleased in coming here at first, huh?”
“That's coz' Gabriel pulled a dick move and plotted behind our backs,” Dean returned, and then stopped as his mind caught up with what his next words had been. And Cas is busy with Raphael, so he doesn't have time for all this bullcrap.
Shit. Dean recalled how things had been with Cas ever since he met the angel again, and he felt a pit begin to claw open inside his stomach. Shit, wasn't that pretty much what he had been doing to Cas himself? He had never really thought about it-what with Lisa and Ben, and Sammy running around without his soul-but right now, with his last words dying on his tongue, Dean slowly connected the dots in his head.
Son of a bitch.
“Dean?” Sam started, blinking in confusion at his brother's sudden silence.
Dean quickly pulled himself out from the sudden deluge of thoughts and waved his little brother off. “It's nothing, Sammy.” Except that it was really a lot of things all of a sudden, and Dean did not want to start thinking about all of them. There was already enough crap going around at the moment, and he really did not need any more of it-especially when it all came from within. Fuck his life, seriously.
Sam, of course, could instantly tell otherwise and put on bitchface #87 ('Your constant attempts to play things off are so not working') but didn't say anything else. He did, however, let out a small sigh and turned away so that Dean could have his space. “Okay, whatever you say.” And Dean knew that this really wasn't the end of it-Sammy was onto it now, and soon his non-ending stream of questions and probes would begin. He just hoped that it'd start later rather than sooner, because he really was in no mood to start contemplating sudden revelations and stupid thoughts that refused to leave his head.
Dean made a frustrated grunt and kicked off his shoes at the foot of his bed. “Gabriel gave us time to crash, not talk about feelings and braid each other's hair. Go to bed, Sam.”
There was another disbelieving snort from his younger brother at those words, but Dean heard the mattress beside him creak under the weight that was his giant of a brother. “Night, Dean.”
“Night.” And Dean forced himself not to think of anything else after that, instead directing his focus towards sleeping. After being zapped across the world, he damned well needed his fucking rest.
Friggin' archangels.
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