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Sam’s not sure when or why he notices it. But it comes to him that every time they run into Balthazar he’s wearing a necklace, and every time they run into Balthazar, they never actually see what’s on the chain. After noticing it, Sam keeps going back to it, turning it over in his head, feeling that itch in the back of his brain that tells him that it’s important, for some reason, this tiny, ridiculous detail he’s noticed and can’t stop thinking about.
“Seriously?” Dean asks when Sam brings it up to him. They’re driving from Oklahoma to some little town in Minnesota, following a tip from Bobby about a possible ghost at a restaurant. “The guy’s got all of heaven’s weapons, and you wanna talk about his jewelry?”
Sam had known, when he’d opened his mouth to ask the question, that Dean would give him shit, but Dean giving him shit has become part of his thinking process over the years, and Dean’s shit-giving helps sharpen why he finds the whole thing worth his notice.
“When was the last time you saw an angel make a deliberate choice about their wardrobe?”
Dean doesn’t answer for a minute. He taps his fingers on the steering wheel, slants Sam a look that’s more curious than disbelieving, and finally says, “What do you mean, ‘deliberate’?”
“Cas has been wearing his tie backwards for years,” Sam says, and it’s only as the sentence leaves his mouth that he realizes that that’s his point. “Balthazar’s probably spent more time around humans than Cas, but he’s still angel-angel, you know? I mean, he clearly thinks he’s above us all—”
“No shit,” Dean says with a snort.
“So, why would he be wearing a necklace? Even if it was on his vessel when he took it over, can you really see him just keeping it because it’s there? And even if he did, how is it possible that it’s always tucked just under the collar of his shirt?”
It’s quiet in the car for nearly five minutes. Sam doesn’t try to fill the silence. Dean’s fingers are tapping on the steering wheel the whole time, and Sam’s still trying to piece together exactly what he thinks is off about the whole thing.
“Weapons,” Dean says. “Or, a weapon.”
“Huh?” Sam asks because even all these years of living out of each other’s pockets doesn’t mean Sam can always follow Dean’s logic.
“We know he’s got all of heaven’s weapons,” Dean says. “And you say we’ve never seen what’s on that chain, right?”
Sam thinks back, pictures Balthazar all the times they’ve seen him. “We haven’t,” he says. “Not once.”
“It’s a weapon,” Dean says with absolute certainty. “It’s gotta be. And it’s gotta be something big.”
“Like what?”
Dean scoffs. “The hell if I know. It’s big but it’s small. You know, sort of like how you’re tall but have a small—”
“Don’t,” Sam interrupts.
Dean shrugs it off. “We could ask Cas,” he offers.
“I do not know of something so small yet so dangerous it would require Balthazar to carry it on his person,” Cas says from the backseat.
Sam will never, ever admit to the high-pitched squeal he makes. He will admit to absolute jealousy that Dean doesn’t even flinch, the asshole. Having your own, personal angel makes you immune to the surprise at him popping in, Sam figures.
“Hey, Cas,” Dean says like Cas has just woken up from a nap and not popped into the car like the world’s creepiest jack-in-the-box.
“Aren’t we supposed to pray to get you down here?” Sam asks because he’s pretty sure that’s the basic rule.
“Dean and I have come to a new agreement,” Cas says with a completely straight face, but there’s something like a blush on the tips of his ears.
“Agreement?” Sam asks and catches the same blush around Dean’s eyes. “Oh, you cannot be serious,” he says. “You two aren’t really—”
“Sammy,” Dean says, and it has the tone that Dean’s had as long as Sam can remember, the one that tells him he’s not just on thin ice but about to get pitched into the cold water beneath if he doesn’t fucking shut it. “Not now.”
Sam ignores him because fuck that tone. “So, is this like a one-night thing, an angel-with-benefits thing, or is it a thing-thing?”
“I do not understand how a thing could be a thing,” Cas says, and Sam can’t help but laugh. Cas seems more confused at that, and Sam reaches back to clap him on the shoulder, which makes Cas smile because he’s finally starting to understand human affection.
And then some, Sam thinks, and that makes him laugh again.
“Cas,” Dean says, and “the tone” has gotten harder. “We’re gonna need a minute.”
“Of course,” Cas says, and he’s gone as easily as he showed up.
Sam keeps laughing for a few more seconds because this whole thing is sort of glorious. It’s so goddamn hard to embarrass Dean, but as Sam starts to calm down, Dean’s color notches up until his whole face is pink, and he’s got his hands gripped tight on the steering wheel. “Oh, relax,” Sam says and pokes Dean in the ribs to make him squirm. “It’s about time.”
The car swerves as Dean turns to gape at Sam. Not much, but given how carefully Dean drives his baby, it’s impressive. “What?” he asks. “What does that even mean?”
“Dean and I share a profound bond,” Sam says in his best Castiel voice, which actually sort of hurts his throat like a bastard.
“I know you’re recently resouled and still bitchface about all that,” Dean says, “but fuck you.”
Sam laughs again because, yeah, there’s a part of him—the overly protected little brother part of him—that is still pissed his request to not be resouled got denied so hard, and he’s still pissed—in the rational part of his brain—about Dean and Bobby trying to hide what he did when he didn’t have a soul. But right now, Dean fighting between scowling at him and smiling like a dopey dumbass because he’s got a boyfriend, makes Sam feel like he’s a kid again, whose big brother is pretty okay and such a complete dork.
“Good for you,” Sam says rather than continue to poke at Dean about the whole thing. “Good for you, man.”
They pass a few mile markers before Dean says, the color having fully faded from his cheeks, “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, and he gives Dean a light punch on the arm, friendly and brotherly and as close as they get to a hug when one of them hasn’t just come back from the dead. “Good for you.”
*
They’re at a hotel somewhere in nowhere Iowa splitting a dinner of deeply questionable pizza when Cas pops in—this time with wing sound so Sam doesn’t jump—and says, “I believe it is a bottle.”
“A bottle of what?” Dean asks.
“A bottle of angel,” Cas replies.
Sam and Dean share a confused look, and then Sam says, “Huh?”
Cas tilts his head at them, reminding Sam—as always—of a smart but confused dog. “Perhaps I translated it wrong,” he says. “English and Enochian do not always match up.”
“It’s not the title,” Dean says. “We just don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I am not talking about hell,” Cas says as he sits on the edge of one of the beds. “I am talking about the weapons of heaven.”
“The necklace,” Sam says as it falls into place. As many human things as Cas has picked up, Sam thinks, he is still really bad at reminding them of conversations they were previously having. “Balthazar’s necklace. It’s an angel bottle?”
“Perhaps,” Cas replies. “It is the only thing I can think of that he would want to keep so close and also be small enough.”
“You’re saying the angel is wearing an angel around his neck?” Dean asks. He pulls a face like someone’s just stomped on his instep. “That’s gotta be a tiny bottle.”
“It is,” Cas says, and he twitches a little in a way that makes Sam think he’s adjusting his wings. “The size of a human thumbnail.”
Sam and Dean both glance down at their hands. Sam tucks his thumbs into his palms. Dean just pulls a different face. “You guys are huge,” Dean says to Cas. “Can you be crammed in something that small?”
“It is unpleasant, but it is possible,” Cas says. “It is a punishment.”
“For what?” Sam asks.
“Disobedience,” Cas replies.
Of course it is, Sam thinks. He sees Dean blanch, and he nearly reaches out to make sure he’s not about to topple over. “Dean?” he asks.
“Anna?” Dean asks.
“No,” Castiel says. “There are other ways to deal with angels of her rank. The bottle, it is only for a certain type of angel.”
The cold prickle of shit about to go down works its way up Sam’s spine. “What certain type?” he asks.
“Archangels,” Cas says.
“Lucifer and Michael did their thing,” Dean says before Sam can pull himself back together from the verbal kick to the ribs that’s just happened to him. “And you’re up there kicking Raphael’s ass right now. Who’s left?”
“Eastern Orthodox says there are seven archangels,” Sam says, reciting from the deep recesses of his memory because to consider what the answer could actually be is making him a little light-headed. “Raphael, Michael, Lucifer, Sealtiel, Jegudiel, and Barachiel,” he lists.
“That’s only six,” Dean says at the same time as Cas says, “Sealtiel, Jegudiel, and Barachiel are all serving alongside Raphael.”
The prickle up Sam’s spine becomes needles jabbing him deep in his skin. “No,” he says, staring at Castiel, feeling the pressure against his fingernails digging into the cheap table as he tries to keep himself from jumping up from his seat and running outside to get away from this conversation.
“What?” Dean says. “You only listed six, Sammy.”
“He’s dead,” Sam says. Cas doesn’t reply, doesn’t even blink. “He’s dead,” Sam repeats.
“Who’s dead?” Dean asks, and goddamnit, Dean’s ability to be so thick at the wrong moments makes Sam want to fucking slug him.
“He’s dead, Cas,” Sam says because he can’t say his name. He just can’t.
“I thought so as well,” Cas replies, and he twitches like he’d done a few minutes before, like he feels trapped and is uncertain he can make a good escape.
“Oh, shit,” Dean says, and Sam knows the penny has fully dropped. “You’re not actually talking about—”
“Gabriel,” Cas says, and Sam is up and out of the room before he can register he’s moved.
When he comes back to himself, he’s in the parking lot, breathing in sharp, cold air and staring up at the sky like it’s going to open up and give him answers. It’s not possible, he thinks. It can’t be possible.
“It’s possible,” Cas says from Sam’s left, and Sam just manages to remind himself that punching Cas in the face will only break his hand.
“How?” Sam asks. “I made you go back to check on him, and you came back and said he was dead. Did you lie?”
“No,” Cas says. “He was dead.”
Sam keeps staring at the sky, hears Gabriel’s voice in his head, a low, amused murmur.
And how do I find you when you pop out?
Second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning, Sam.
Really? You’re plagiarizing Peter Pan at me?
Please. Barrie still owes me twenty bucks for that line.
“But Balthazar’s wearing him around his neck like a good luck charm?”
“Possibly,” Cas says in that tone he has that actually means, Yes, and I hate that I have to admit that you’ve figured it out.
“How?” Sam asks, and he can’t help but ask it a second time. “How?!” and he can hear how goddamn broken he sounds, can practically feel himself fall to slivers like he did when Cas came back and told him the news.
“Archangels are a special version of angel,” Cas says. “Father made them first. They were…a test, I suppose, of what he could make if he truly applied himself.” Cas pauses, and Sam waits him out. Stares so hard at the sky he starts to think he can feel its weight on him, pressing him hard against the ground, reminding him of his stupid, tiny life and its expiration date. “They occupy a distinct place in the human consciousness, higher than other angels. They are, generally, the only angels humans know by name.”
When he and Dean had been little and they had stayed in a town for more than a couple of weeks, their dad had always dragged them to church on Sundays. “Research times, boys,” John had always said when he shook them awake in their sagging motel bed. They’d rotated churches every week, John always informing parishioners that they were new to town (true) and that he was trying out a few different churches to see what fit best (false). They’d spent as much time in Catholic churches as much as any other, and Sam remembers first learning the names of the archangels, reciting Lucifer and Michael and Raphael and Gabriel to the nun in the Sunday School in Fort Collins. She’d rewarded his memory with a smile and a pat on the head, and then explained the functions of the archangels to the room at large. If you ever really needed the ear of God, she’d told them, you prayed to Gabriel, because he was God’s messenger.
“What are you saying?” Sam asks Cas. “What lesson are you trying to throw at me?”
“No lesson,” Cas says, and he clasps Sam in an awkward copy of the shoulder grab Sam had done to him in the car. “An explanation. When Father made the archangels and then made the humans who would pray to the archangels, I don’t think he understood the full power of the minds he’d bestowed to the humans.”
“I don’t think he understands it now,” Sam says.
Cas is silent for a moment. “Perhaps,” he admits in the tone that actually means, I agree with you but am very well-trained. “When Father made humans, he wanted them to believe in him and all of his angels, but I do not think he understood the transformative power of the human mind, of its ability to shape reality as it saw fit.”
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t see the Model-T coming,” Cas says. “Father created horses for man to use as a device of travel and shipment, and then Henry Ford created the Model-T, and I have been told Father was greatly confused by it. He had not planned for it to occur, you see, and so he could not understand how it had happened.”
“What does this have to do with Gabriel being alive and stuck in a bottle?” Sam asks.
“Father wanted humans to know of the angels,” Cas says in his, I am certain I already made this clear tone, “But I do not think he fully understood the power of human thought. There are many people who pray to Gabriel who have not been informed of his death.”
“Texas,” Sam mutters.
“Texas?” Cas asks.
“Dean and I worked a job in Texas awhile back,” Sam says, and he finally looks away from the sky and at Cas, who watches him in that unblinking way that has, at some point, become not creepy. “Years ago. It was supposed to be a haunting, but it turned out it was a hoax that became real because the people who’d set it up had used actual religious symbols to build the legend of it, and people were reading about it on the Internet and looking at a picture of a symbol that was supposed to bring forth a Tulpa, and it made this fake story real.”
Cas cocks his head. “You are saying Gabriel is alive because of the power of thoughts.”
“I’m saying that you’re saying that,” Sam replies. “You’re the one who said your dad was bad at realizing how powerful the human mind can be, and I’m saying that Dean and I saw firsthand exactly how powerful the mind can be in making a certain type of reality happen. And that was just people bored on the Internet. A bunch of devout people believing that an archangel is still alive…”
“If we’re right,” Cas says slowly, “we will require a plan of attack.”
“What do you have in mind?” Sam asks.
“I don’t know,” Cas admits, and he’s gone in flap of wings and enough wind that Sam actually gets pushed back a step. He grimaces and shakes his head and goes back into the motel room. Dean is sitting on the edge of one of the beds, hands between his knees. He looks up when Sam closes the door.
“Cas left,” Sam says.
“Yeah,” Dean replies. He clears his throat, rubs the back of his neck, clears his throat again. “Sam,” he says.
“Yeah?” Sam asks because he’s really not sure what Dean’s opening line is going to be.
Dean stands and rocks back on his heels and clenches his jaw for a moment before relaxing it and asking, “You and Gabriel?”
Sam forces himself to breathe deep, to stay calm in the face of the way Dean’s eyes are flinty. “Yeah,” he says.
“He killed me,” Dean says, voice low and even and murderous in the way it’s not at all.
“A lot,” Sam agrees. “But then he brought you back.”
“So, he gets a free pass?”
“No.”
Dean rocks back on his heels again. “But you two were…a thing.”
“A thing?”
“Oh, stow the attitude, Sammy. I don’t know your preferred pronoun for being an angel-fucker.”
“Says the current angel-fucker,” Sam replies before he can stop himself. The quiet that falls between them in sharp and cold.
“Cas isn’t Gabriel,” Dean says after a moment.
“No, he’s not,” Sam agrees. “But he’s probably incredibly fucked up in his own way.”
“How the hell?” Dean demands.
“I don’t know,” Sam says because he really, doesn’t. “I hated him, and then you died for real, and then…Ruby…and then you didn’t trust me, and he showed up again when you and I were working separate jobs, and it just sort of…worked.”
“And you never told me.”
“Because that obviously would have gone over well,” Sam says, and he can feel the reverberation in his chest that means he basically yelled it.
“He wanted us to play body doubles for Lucifer and Michael!” Dean shouts.
“And then he showed up when we were at the hotel, and then he…” And Sam knows even if he wanted to, he couldn’t yell the next part. All the air is gone from his lungs, and most of the fight under his skin is just gone. “He died, Dean. He died trying to save our asses, and I…I didn’t know how to explain it all to you, and he was…he was dead, and—” Sam can’t finish the sentence for a few seconds. There’s a knot in his throat that feels like it’s going to choke him to death, and he has to look away from Dean, stare at the peeling wallpaper and pull himself back together.
“Did you love him?” Dean asks.
“I think so,” Sam replies without thinking because they’d never said it to one another, but Gabriel had seemed to delight in making him laugh, making him smile, had reached out to Sam as much as Sam had reached out to him, and he thinks, maybe—maybe—maybe he was in love a little.
“Shit,” Dean says. He covers his face with his hands, and then he pulls his hands away and his eyes are clear, his jaw is set. “I suppose we better save the bastard, then.”
“Dean?” Sam asks because it’s all he can ask.
“Cas should be dead,” Dean says. “But he’s not.”
It doesn’t explain Dean’s reasoning at all, Sam thinks, but the way Dean is standing, the way he looks like a river could crash into him and he wouldn’t move, makes Sam feel like he understands the reasoning completely. Cas should be dead, but he’s not. Gabriel should be dead, but he’s not. And that’s enough.
*
“An angel bottle?” Bobby asks two days later when they stop in at the house and ask him what he knows. “Never heard of it. Sounds like something girls wear around their necks to look more Manic Pixie Dreamgirl.” He rolls his eyes when they both give him a surprised look. “You think I only use the Internet to look up shit for you two boneheads?”
“You think we can get it off Balthazar?” Dean asks.
Bobby shrugs. “Why not?” he asks. “We kicked the Apocalypse in the gonads, pulling an angel from the neck of another angel is pretty small potatoes by comparison.”
“Archangel,” Sam corrects.
Bobby does that slow, measured head turn he does when Sam or Dean says something particularly ridiculous. Sam figures he’s seen it at least once a visit since he was six or seven. “What?” Bobby says.
“It’s not just an angel,” Sam says, and the way Bobby’s eyes narrow make him fear like he hasn’t in years. “It’s an archangel.”
“Do I even want to know which one?” Bobby asks, sounding like he’s just stayed up thirty-six hours.
“Sammy’s boyfriend,” Dean says before Sam can tell him. “The short one.”
“Boyfriend?” Bobby asks, and then immediately, “The short--oh, for crying out loud, not the one that killed Dean all those times.”
“I—” Sam starts to defend himself.
“And you get that smirk off your face,” Bobby says to Dean. “And quit acting like you think I’m so thick-headed I don’t know you picked yourself up your own flyby relationship with that angel of yours.”
Sam ducks his head to hide his laugh. He can see in his peripheral vision the way Dean shifts his weight from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable.
“He’s not my angel,” Dean says, and the way Bobby snorts makes Sam laugh.
“It’s okay?” Sam asks Bobby because Dean being mad at him is sort of regular at this point (and, really, always has been), but if Bobby is actually mad that Sam and Gabriel had a thing, he thinks it might be the worst hurt he’s had in a while.
Bobby shrugs. “Dean hasn’t blacked your eye, and I never met the asshole, so I can’t say much about him—” Dean mutters something that sounds like I can say plenty, and Bobby throws him a hard look. “What I know,” he continues, “is you boys would have been dead at that hotel if it weren’t for him taking the hit for you, and when a man lays down his life to help you in a war, you pay him back the best you can.”
There’s silence for a moment. Dean looks like he’s getting a new perspective on the whole thing. Sam is trying very, very hard not to think too much on the fact that Gabriel died because of them. Bobby’s just watching the both of them, waiting to see what they’ll say.
“Where do we start?” Dean asks.
“Pick a book. Start digging,” Bobby says.
They settle in with books, and when Sam gets up to get them the first round of beers, he pauses just a second when he hands Dean his, slants him a smile, and says, so quiet it almost doesn’t carry, “Thanks.”
“Don’t be a girl, Sammy.”
“Idgits,” Bobby mutters when Sam hands him his beer, but he gives Sam a small, tight smile that makes Sam think about Karen, and how Bobby had to lose her again, and he thinks, if Dean gets it, then Bobby understands it, and he has to clench his beer tight in his hand for a few minutes before he can really concentrate on researching again.
*
It takes two days before they finally find reference to the damn angel bottle. It’s buried in an appendix of a lore book Bobby barely uses, so it’s one of the last ones they even bother to check. All the entry tells them is what they already know: It’s a bottle. It can hold an archangel. It’s punishment.
“Well, that’s two days that can fuck right off,” Dean says as he stretches his arms over his head. Even across the room, Sam can hear his back popping.
“What now?” Sam asks as he throws himself onto the couch. The small, flickering hope that had lit up when they’d started the research has burned down to ash, and his chest feels hollow and sore.
“We work with what we know,” Bobby says as he stacks books. “We trap the son of a bitch and hold him hostage until he hands the necklace over.”
“Trap him how?” Sam asks. “If we put him in holy fire, wouldn’t it kill—” He can’t say Gabirel’s name, he finds out. It sticks at the back of his throat like a half-swallowed pill. “Wouldn’t passing the bottle over the flame kill…”
“Cas!” Dean calls as Sam clears his throat and feels foolish in a way he can’t quite name.
Cas pops in, damn near on top of Dean, and Sam and Bobby share an exasperated look at the way both Dean and Cas seem uncertain how they should greet one another.
“Idgits,” Bobby mutters, and Sam scoffs in agreement.
“You called?” Cas asks, and he leans in towards Dean as though the six inches between them is too much, somehow. Sam wants to mock them, but he can’t even say Gabriel’s name right now, so he figures he has no room to judge.
“The angel bottle,” Dean says. “Does it protect the angel inside from anything?”
Cas thinks about it for a moment. “Banishment,” he says, finally. “If the bottle is not attached to a secondary angel, it would stay.”
“Why?” Sam asks. “Because it’s punishment, right,” he says before Cas can explain.
“Yes,” Cas says. “It is so the angel cannot self-banish to try and escape.”
“But as long as Balthazar is wearing it, we can’t get the bottle,” Bobby interjects. “I got that?”
“Yes,” Cas replies. “You would have to create a circumstance that would necessitate Balthazar removing the necklace before you banished him.”
“Would he trade for it?” Bobby asks.
“He has all the weapons of Heaven,” Castiel says in his You cannot be serious, but I’m trying to humor you, tone. “I do not believe we have a bargaining chip he wants.”
They all fall silent. Cas shuffles his feet, then places his hand on Dean’s shoulder, fingers awkward in the way they don’t quite curl around the curve of it. Sam thinks he might vomit from how adorable it is. Especially when Dean looks up at Cas and gives him a little smile. The smile drops into a thoughtful frown, and Sam’s about to ask if he’s okay when Dean asks, “Can you jam more than one angel in that bottle?”
Cas takes a step back, and Sam would laugh, but he realizes what Dean’s asking, and he finds himself repeating the question. “Can you?” He asks.
“You can,” Cas says, and his face has fallen into that etched-in seriousness it gets when he’s about to deliver some sort of bad news. “I suppose you plan to jam Raphael in the bottle along with Gabriel.”
“No,” Sam says, and he glances at Dean, who nods to show he’s on the right track. “We’ll tell Balthazar that’s what we want to do, but we’ll let Gabriel out before we give you the bottle.”
“That is not possible,” Cas says. “You can fit as many angels into that bottle as you can on the head of a pin, but the only way to release them is to break the bottle.”
“We can’t just pop the top?” Dean asks.
“No,” Cas says. “It is another safety measure. To be released from the bottle, the bottle must be shattered.”
“How do you shatter a heavenly containment unit?” Bobby asks, already looking at his books as though the answer must be in one of them.
“A force of will,” Cas says, and he looks at Sam, eyes unfathomably deep and bright, bright blue. “And love.”
Sam suddenly feels two sizes too small for his skin, the way Cas and Dean and Bobby all turn to look at him. “Um,” he says. Because, yeah, he told Dean that he was pretty sure he was in love with Gabriel, but he’s not sure if he was in heavenly weapon shattering love with Gabriel. “I…”
“Cas,” Dean says, tone making it clear a thought’s just struck him. “Did you know before we asked that the bottle could hold more than one angel?”
“Yes.”
“And did you know the bottle had to be broken to get Gabriel out?”
“Yes.”
Dean shakes his head. “Then why wouldn’t you just lift it off Balthazar and use it yourself? Or lie to us and put it to use?”
Something broken and painful slides across Cas’s face. Sam recognizes it. It’s the way his face settled when Dean was dead. “Because he is my brother,” Castiel says. “And I wish to have him back.”
Dean clears his throat in that way that means he doesn’t want to admit he’s just had a feeling. Sam ignores it and gives Cas as much of a smile as he can muster, though he can feel it waver at the edges. “Thanks,” he says. Cas doesn’t answer, just gives him an off-center little nod, and Sam sort of wants to hug him.
“You know,” Bobby says, dragging on the ‘o’ to get their attention. “Just because we’re gonna shatter it don’t mean we have to tell Balthazar that’s the plan. We feed him the double-stuff line, he may give it up.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Sam asks.
Bobby looks at Cas. “You still got that pig-sticker of yours?”
“If you mean my sword, then yes.”
“Think we’ll be fine,” Bobby replies.
*
They’re not fine. Balthazar—dick that he is—isn’t stupid. He refuses to give up the necklace, and Cas pulls his sword, and Balthazar pulls his, and they both manages to stab one another, and it’s only when Balthazar is down and leaking grace that Sam goes in and yanks the necklace off with so much force it leaves a welling line of blood along the left side of Balthazar’s neck.
“Cas!” Sam yells, managing to avoid Balthazar’s grasping hand as he leaps backwards. “What do I do?”
“Open it!” Cas rasps. “Pray to him. Tell him you love him.”
“Oh, this is—” is as far as Balthazar gets before Dean hits him upside the head with a sledge hammer. The hammer has a dent in it, but Balthazar drops, and then Dean’s on his knees next to Cas, pressing his hand against the gash in Cas’s side and murmuring something into Cas’s hair Sam doesn’t have to guess about.
“It is all right, Dean,” Cas says. “I will be fine.”
“Sam!” Dean barks. “Get that asshole out of the bottle so he can fix this!”
Sam fumbles off the top of the bottle, nearly dropping the tiny thing to the floor in his haste. He looks into it and wrenches his head away as something bright sparks against his vision and gives him an instant migraine.
“Got an angel bleeding out, Sammy!” Dean yells.
“I’m on it!” Sam says, and he is, because this is the job. This crazy, angel-bleeding, angel-in-a-bottle shit is what he does. Just because he’s got to pray to his dead boyfriend and admit he’s still in love with him doesn’t really make it any weirder than any other day.
Well, most other days.
Gabriel, Sam thinks, focusing on the bottle in his hands, his eyes screwed shut against the glare he can feel against his face. Gabriel, please come out of there. Gabriel, I…you’re an asshole and a smartass and you killed Dean a hundred and twenty-six times, and I am in love with you, and I swear, if you don’t come out of there, I will close this fucker back up and leave you in there because I know you can hear me, and I know you want out of there, and if I don’t have enough love to do this, I damn well have enough stubbornness. I got out from under your idiot brother long enough to throw him into the pit, so get your ass out here before I come in after you.
There’s nothing for a long, silent second, and then Sam hears a noise that he knows entirely too well is Dean getting thrown across a room, and he knows Balthazar has rallied, and he knows Balthazar got Cas worse than Cas got him, and he knows there’s no time.
He wears V-neck shirts cut so low he has cleavage, Sam thinks. And he’s been wearing you around his neck like it’s the latest tacky accessory from Ed Hardy. This is the guy that’s about to kill Cas. This is the guy who’s gonna get to brag he beat you. You really want that on your record?
There’s another second of silence. Sam hears Dean swearing, hears Cas gasping, hears Balthazar laughing like a maniac.
And then he hears a different laugh entirely.
“Keep your eyes closed, handsome,” Gabriel says, voice carrying up from the bottle as it starts to fall to pieces in Sam’s hand. “I’m not dressed just yet.”
“Dean!” Sam yells. “Close your eyes!”
There’s a whoosh, and then more heat than light pressing all through the room. Sam gulps in deep, swallows it down, keeps his eyes squeezed closed, keeps his hand clenched around the shattered remains of the bottle. He hears Balthazar scream, and then the heat is gone, and he hears Dean yell in surprise and Cas say something quiet and reassuring that he doesn’t hear all the words for, and then he feels someone step up to him.
“Sam.”
And he knows that voice. He loves that voice. But he doesn’t get this. He never gets this.
“Sam, open your eyes.” A hand slides between his jacket and shirt, clenches in the side seam and yanks, hard enough that he stumbles and gets caught by someone noticeably shorter than him in a canvas jacket, but he still can’t open his eyes. He never gets this.
“Sam,” and the voice is warm against his ear, a second hand curling around the back of his neck and tugging at the hair at his nape. “Open your damned eyes.”
And he does, hard as it is. He opens his eyes, and he’s staring into Gabe’s, their weird hazel-olive-gold he’s never seen anywhere else. Sam stumbles again, and Gabe catches him again, and Gabe waggles his eyebrows when Sam stares and says, “Hey, kiddo. That a sword in your pocket, or you just happy to see me?”
And Sam kisses him. Digs his fingers into Gabe’s sides and kisses him until Gabe starts to scramble up him like he’s a jungle gym, and Sam gets a hand under each of Gabriel’s thighs and just hefts him where he wants him, and they kiss like that, Gabe crowded up against his chest, Sam propping him up and tilting back his head as Gabe crawls another few inches and gets the advantage.
When they break apart—Sam panting like he’s just run a race, Gabriel smirking and running his hands through Sam’s hair—Dean coughs hard, once, then says, “So, you’re not dead.”
“Nope,” Gabriel says without looking away from Sam. “I graced out pretty hard, but I got pulled back together, and I didn’t have the ability to hide myself, so when there was enough of me to spark notice, Raphael jammed my ass into that bottle and shoved me on a shelf.”
“Did Balthazar know it was you?” Cas asks.
“Yup,” Gabriel says. “Which is why he left howling.” There’s a dangerous, mean glint in his eyes, and Sam presses him closer, stumbles back a step until he’s against a wall, and Gabriel brackets him in with his arms on either side of his head, and Gabriel grins and says, “Oh, good, still kinky as shit.”
“Ew.” Dean says.
“You are fucking my baby brother, Dean-o. Maybe shut up.”
Dean and Cas have a quick, whispered conversation Sam doesn’t really catch because Gabriel’s grinning at him, and Sam can’t help but grin back as his heart trip-hammers in his chest. “Hey,” he says, and Gabriel’s grin gets more manic.
“Hey,” he replies, and he pecks Sam on the end of the nose. “Missed you.”
“Yeah?”
“Hells yeah.”
They stare at each other for another moment, and then Gabriel pops out of Sam’s arms and pops in no more than a foot from Cas. “Hey,” he says.
“Gabriel,” Cas responds, and before he can default to his double-serious angel ways, Gabriel yanks him into a hug that lifts him off the ground.
“Thank you,” Gabriel says.
“You’re welcome,” Cas replies. He holds completely still until Gabriel puts him down. He continues to stand still for another second or two, like a dog who’s been caught chewing shoes but trying to figure a way out of trouble.
Gabriel looks at Dean. He grins. “Asshole.”
“Douchebag.”
“Well, that’s finished,” Gabriel says. He turns back around, walks towards Sam, pauses to look at him in a way that makes every part of Sam hot and excited and very, very happy, and then Gabriel walks around him and crouches down to touch the shards of the bottle that Sam had dropped from his hand when Gabriel had gone in for that first kiss. There’s a glow, and a sound like air being sucked out of the room, and the bottle is whole again. “And now,” Gabriel says,” holding up the necklace so Cas can see it. “Let’s go finish this.”
“Hey,” Sam says before they can fly away. He reaches out and tangles his fingers in the cuff of Gabriel’s jacket. “If you die before we have resurrection sex, I’m never talking to you again.”
Gabriel barks a laugh, then stands on his toes and tips back his head until Sam leans down and kisses him. “Oh, you’ll talk to me,” Gabriel says against his mouth, warm and dirty and glorious. “You’ll say all kinds of things.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that.”
“I’m gonna hold you to a lot of things.”
“Gross,” Dean says.
“Right. Because all you say to Cas is please and thank you,” Gabriel replies. He and Cas are gone before Dean can answer.
“Your boyfriend’s a dick,” Dean says.
“Yours is a weirdo,” Sam replies.
Dean looks like he might protest, but then he shrugs and looks around the room. “Think we should wait here?”
“They can find us,” Sam says. “I’d rather not be here.”
Dean leads the way out, stopping next to the Impala and holding up a hand to stop Sam from going around to the passenger side. “Wait.”
“What?”
“Cas can find us because he carved those things into our ribs. How can Gabriel find you?”
It is, for the first time in days, Sam’s turn to blush. “Um…”
“Oh, god. No. Nope. No. Not doing it. No.” Dean says.
“It’s not—”
Dean slams his hands over his ears and starts humming “Don’t Fear the Reaper” as loudly as he can. A bit on the nose, Sam thinks, but he can’t help but smile.
“He gave me one of his feathers!” Sam shouts over Dean’s humming. “That’s it. Apparently, if an angel gives you one voluntarily, he can track you.”
Dean drops his hands and looks deeply relieved. “Oh, thank god it wasn’t some weird sex ritual.”
Sam grins. “Well—”
“Shut up, Sammy.”
“What? You didn’t get a weird sex ritual to get one of Cas’s feathers?”
“Shut. Up. Sammy.”
“So he didn’t tie you—” Sam cracks up when Dean tackles him around the chest, and they thump against the car. Sam fights back, and they wrestle until they’re breathless and laughing, climbing into the car and trying not to make eye contact because it sets them both off again.
They’re halfway back to the motel when Dean glances at Sam and says, “He make you happy?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, ducking his head. “Yeah, he does.”
“All right,” Dean says.
“And Cas?” Sam asks.
“Yeah,” Dean replies.
“Okay,” Sam says.
They don’t say anything else until Dean pulls into the parking lot of the hotel. He pauses in taking the key from the ignition and looks at Sam again. “Really? That short bastard?”
“Rude,” Gabriel says, having popped into the backseat without a sound.
Dean yelps, but Sam doesn’t even flinch. Having your own, personal angel, he supposes, has some advantages.
“Hey, Giant Samwood, you promised me resurrection sex.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees, turning to look at Gabriel, who’s grinning and waggling his eyebrows. “I did.”
“Well, then.”
“I’m gonna go find Cas,” Dean says, scrambling to open the door.
“He’s gonna find parts of Cas,” Gabriel mutters to Sam, and Sam laughs as Gabriel pulls him into the backseat of the car.
“No sex in the car!” Dean yells from the hotel room door.
“Depending on which senators you ask, handjobs aren’t sex,” Gabriel says.
Sam chuckles and kisses Gabriel’s collarbone and then bites his ear. “I missed you,” he whispers.
“Good,” Gabriel replies.
“I sent Cas to check on you after we left that hotel, and you—”
“Hey,” Gabriel says, cupping Sam’s face. “I died to save you. And here you are. Saved. And here I am. Back. Kind of worked out for everyone.”
“I—”
“Nope,” Gabriel says. “No guilt for this. You and Dean come back every other week. I get to have one, too.”
They’re supposed to be dead, Sam thinks. But they’re not. It’s not much of a philosophy to live by, he thinks. But they keep living.
“Okay,” Sam says. “All right.”
Gabriel grins and snaps his fingers and they’re in a hotel room with a view of the ocean and a dessert cart in one corner. “Now,” Gabriel says, “about that resurrection sex.”
“One track mind.”
“You love it.”
He does, Sam thinks. No maybe about it.