Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural!
"It's not like we want to do this."
Dean is really hoping that Sam wouldn't be crying right now. As he tuts incredulously at Castiel's guilt-ridden face, he glances at his brother and puts his face into his palms. Sam is gnawing at his lips and squeezing out tears every other second, and quite frankly, Dean is embarrassed. They're not putting up much of a fight.
"Is that your big excuse? Like that justifies it?"
"We take orders." Uriel steps forward as Castiel turns away in culpability, "It's just as simple as that."
"And what's after me? Is Sam next?" Dean inquires, iciness gracing his uncommonly quiet voice.
"We'll see." Uriel replies just as coldly, shifting his glare to the younger Winchester for a moment.
"I'm not letting you take him back there." Sam says, attempting to sneer at the two angels and possessively grab onto Dean's elbow with clammy hands. "He doesn't deserve to go to Hell."
"We're not saying we don't agree with you." Castiel defensively adds. "But orders are orders."
"I don't give a damn about your orders–" Sam hisses, edging closer to Castiel and Uriel, but Dean stops him by deftly sticking his arm out and halting Sam's movements.
"Sammy, don't. It's okay."
"No! It's not! This is unfair! Dean has done more for the earth than you up there in heaven probably ever will!" Sam roars, and frantically searches his pockets with trembling fingers to find a weapon suitable to kill an angel.
"Sam, stop it! They're not ones to… make deals."
"They will be!" the younger hunter tells Dean insistently and reaches for Ruby's knife. He brandishes it at the angel's skin. Uriel raises his eyebrows elegantly and begins chuckling at the motions.
"You Winchesters are much thicker than I expected." With a fingertip, Uriel gently pushes away the knife and circles around Sam to get to Dean. Sam's sharp reflexes allow him to shoot back to Dean's side faster than a bullet could leave a gun.
"Sam, I'm not letting them kill you too. It's my job to protect you."
"How well can you do that job when you're rotting in Hell, Dean?" Sam whips around furiously to face Dean, effectively ceasing his arguments. Dean sighs, raking a hand through his hair.
"We don't choose our births and we don't choose our deaths." Castiel murmurs into the silence of the room, darkening by the second. With every intense moment that passes, Sam can feel the temperature drop at least ten degrees.
Time had run out. Again and again, time would run out for the Winchesters. Uriel and Castiel are staring down at the two of them, Uriel waiting for Dean like a looming undertaker and Castiel waiting for acceptance from Dean to take away some of the guilt that went naturally with the deed of returning him to Hell.
"This can't be happening." Dean mutters silently into the eclipsed room, staring at the floor. Sam feels a hand on his shoulder rubbing consolingly as a half-hearted goodbye, mostly because either Dean can't muster himself to do any more or because that's the only physical contact they should really display in front of the two angels.
"I'm sorry, Sammy." The older man whispers into Sam's ear before lightly nuzzling the back of his neck and pressing a short kiss to the hem of his hair. Sam savors the moment but can't help but not take worth to the goodbye.
"No." he mumbles over his shoulder, turning around to grip Dean's shoulders, "this is not the end for you. Or for me." He faces Castiel firmly, "What if you could?"
"Excuse me?"
"What if you could choose your death?" Sam proposes. An idea is forming in his head faster than a bolt of lightning could strike on unprotected land. It's not necessarily a good idea and he knows that Dean will burst out into unsuppressed laughter if he shares it, but Dean's life is on the line.
"We don't take offers." Uriel shoots down.
"Wait a second," Castiel says, "what are you thinking of?"
Sam can't help but grin as he realizes that he may have cracked Castiel's exterior. He takes a step forward. "An offer. Double or nothing. If you win, you can have both Dean and me. And if you lose… we both live and you don't bother us again."
"Sam, what are you–" Dean ushers forward, grabbing Sam's elbow roughly.
"This is ridiculous–" Uriel says.
"Wait, Uriel." Castiel pauses, "what's the game?"
"Uh… blackjack? Poker?"
"Oh, god," Dean rolls his eyes, "it's like we're in second grade recess all over again. Let's break out the cards and play Go Fish, Sam!" he brushes off sardonically, "Just let them take me."
"I… think we can try that." Castiel nods curtly.
Sam has no idea where the playing cards even came from. All he knows is that he is dreadful at gambling and he doesn't know why he even suggested this. He's afraid to even play the slot machine at a casino with more than two coins. But he knows that Dean is excellent at playing clever hands, and even now with the game just now being shuffled out, he can spy a glimmer of hope and determination in the older hunter's eyes.
When they were younger and their father was just beginning to run credit card scams, Dean earned their salary by passing through bars and playing poker with drunken rednecks gambling through the night.
"Okay, one game," Uriel mutters, "the bet on the table is your lives."
Sam doesn't want his humanity to be swiped out from underneath his eyes but if he has to go, at least he'll go with Dean. He sits down on the floor, his hands, his arms, even his toes shaking at the prospect of gambling their lives over a game of poker.
"So tell me," Uriel questions, flicking cards in their and his own direction, "do humans cheat at poker?"
"Do angels?" Dean retorts swiftly.
"We play fair."
"We play dirty," Dean replies, and when Castiel raises his eyebrows in question, he smirks, "God told me I have to." He adds cheekily.
"Is this… Texas hold 'em?" Sam asks, rubbing the back of hair awkwardly. It's the only type of poker he even understands but luckily enough, it's also the most notorious type.
"All right." Uriel nods, and finishes passing out the cards. Dean leafs out their cards and discreetly stares at the numbers by gently pulling up the tip of the cards with his thumb.
It's Winchesters versus Angels, and the devotion radiating from Dean's form simply screams dammit, we're gonna beat their holy asses all the way back to heaven. Dean's furled together fist creeps its way over to Sam's knee where he taps it rhythmically.
"Ready?" Dean asks. He's really jumped on board with the idea of gambling. Sam's teetering on the edge of running wildly away from the whole game to begin with. Pearls of shiny sweat are caking his skin, but Dean's confident grip on his knee is slowly egging confidence back into his stance.
"Uh… straight flush beats a full house, right?" Sam mumbles, twitching his thumbs. Dean nods before cocking his head towards the cards. Sam checks them and bites his lip. Dean had attempted to teach him poker when he was fifteen, and despite the fact that he had claimed to understand the game and the hands, poker confused him more than even Hell did. He was more of a tic-tac-toe sort of player.
"What do you got?" Uriel challenges.
"Uh… just one hand?" Sam knows there's nothing else to juice up the game with considering life was pretty much the biggest thing you could hand over, but it frightens him knowing that he has only one shot at saving himself and his brother. Some people played with money, some played with clothing, but Dean and Sam Winchesters gambled their lives.
"Of course," Uriel chuckles, "We don't want you limb by limb. We'd rather throw you into the pit as one whole."
"How considerate." Dean rolls his eyes and slams his elbows onto the makeshift poker table. "Enough playing around, just show me your hand."
It's practically slow motion. "Dean." Sam mutters, gripping Dean's forearm hard enough to bruise. Dean tries to jerk away from the death lock his brother has on his arm, but Sam is holding on for dear life. Which he basically is.
"Flush." Castiel brandishes their pack of cards at the middle of the table. The numbers loom up at him in blurry colors. Sam doesn't even remember their own cards and feels his muscles heat up at the pure thought of winning this game. Losing this game.
"Uriel," Dean addresses, "Castiel. It's been nice knowing you."
Sam feels his soul sink down to his feet and slosh around, swimming, for a while. He knows it's the end of their lives and can't help but feel that he should have been kinder, he should have stayed at Stanford, he shouldn't have wasted his life being the object of attention of bloodthirsty monsters, he shouldn't have fought so much with his father, he shouldn't have let Azazel bleed demon blood into his mouth, he shouldn't have been the reason why Dean had to sell his soul to hell, he shouldn't have let Jake stab him, he shouldn't have let Lilith live and slip out of his hands… he had more than a thousand regrets and he wouldn't have a even a minute to right at least one.
"But I'm extremely glad I'll never have to see your bastardly faces with your make believe halos in front of me ever again in my whole life." He stands up histrionically before slapping four of a kind down onto the table. Sam gasps, almost as if feeling the life being thrust back into him. Uriel looks cantankerous and Castiel sighs in what Sam can't identify as relief or despair.
"We won." Sam tells himself silently. He pleads that Dean doesn't want to spice it up by playing two out of three. He slowly stands up from the table before smiling broadly in his brother's face. "Dean, we won!" He goes to wrap his arms around Dean but is denied the embrace as Dean faces the two angels and laughs in their faces triumphantly.
"Ha ha!" he singsongs, "you losers!" He slaps a high five with Sam, and through all of their victory, he dips Sam down into an almost Shakespearean kiss.
It would have been wonderful if it hadn't been for the fact that A, Uriel and Castiel were watching them like animals at display at the zoo, B, the position Dean was putting him in made him feel as though someone was twisting his spine into a sloppily built pretzel, C, his sweat was still running down his face like an unstoppable leaky faucet, and D, Dean's tongue is rammed so far into his throat he thinks he's executing a dental exam.
As his spine readjusts and he's lifted from his dip of doom, he stares incredulously into Dean's face, his palms still plastered onto his sturdy chest.
"You know that they're watching us, right?" he whispers into Dean's ear, referring to the two dumbstruck angels still staring at their display of affection like teenagers watching a car chase on a widescreen TV.
"Yeah, I totally care," Dean brushes off sarcastically, once again connecting their lips. It feels much better to do it in front of an audience than they would in the darkness of their motel rooms mostly because both of them are finally claming each other without a care about the fact that it was out of the norm. They were brothers, two male brothers hunting the world to rid evil, and it was about as unrealistic as a fantasy. A fantasy that was definitely not created by god.
"Before you say anything," Dean mentions to the two angels, "we don't care that we're dirty sinners going to hell eventually."
"Dean, I think you should shut up." Sam warns. He's never been one to gloat.
Castiel gets up from the table. "It's fine. It's time for us to leave anyway."
"And learn how to gamble on your way out, boys." Dean calls after the two grumbling angels before grabbing Sam's waist protectively.
Fin.
AN: Like everyone else, I hate Uriel, but Castiel…? Mmm. I could spread him on a cracker! Those eyes, that hair, that amazing trench coat… XD I'm actually really warming up to the thought of Dean/Castiel, especially after the fact that Castiel keeps on bonding with him… :D I actually love him in season four!
And oh yes, I suck at poker, but I know the rules XP My sister taught me how to play a year ago and the 'gambling' plot with their lives was just too good to pass up. I could actually totally see Castiel and Uriel wanting to ship Dean off to Hell later on in the season and Sam standing up for him with some Go Fish! XD