Sabriel written at… you guessed it… 1 am
I have literally no explanation for this. I just started writing and saw where it got me.
It was one a.m. and the world was quiet. Never silent. Not really.
Something was bugging Sam.
A hunter relies on intuition. Sam threw off the covers, not knowing why. He stood, settling the balls of his feet into the floor.
He was barely dressed, but he couldn't do anything about that now.
It may seem like he had all the time in the world, but the air reeked of unnatural.
Dean's snores echoed in the other room. Cas's lighter snores sang harmony. This was a rare occasion, then: Sam was the only one awake.
A pair of gym shorts, carelessly thrown on the floor, would have to be enough to cover him.
Sam stalked forward, to the main room.
Someone was there.
Someone was there in the main room.
Someone had bypassed all the sigils and stood in an almost ethereal glow, having managed to find the one spot in the room where lighting was superb.
Dean would have been thinking about the gun in the vase, the one under the table, the blade mounted on the wall, and a million other weapons he could reach. Sam was thinking that he'd seen this figure before.
The man was slumped over.
Sam rushed towards him, realizing something important. Two things important.
1) The man was asleep.
2) The man very closely resembled the Archangel Gabriel.
Sam didn't allow himself to confirm or deny the second one, because this man could be dangerous.
Sam picked Gabriel up and moved him to the couch.
Gabriel stirred.
Sam looked at him with expectant hope.
"Can you tell me your name?"
An Enochian sounding growl emitted from Gabriel's loose lips.
Sam lifted G—the man. He had forgotten that he did not know who this man was. –lifted him up, just his torso. He resettled the man into the couch, upright.
"What's your name?"
The man shook his head. He cast around for his surroundings.
Lack of understanding dimmed his amber eyes.
"Where am I?" he finally whispered.
"Tell me your name," Sam said.
The man frowned.
"I have many names," he said.
"Tell me your real one."
"I don't know my real one. It's locked away."
Sam glared.
"I'm sorry," said the man. He really did sound apologetic. "I feel like I owe it to you to try. But I really don't know. There's a wall in my mind."
"Why do you owe it to me?" Sam asked, genuinely curious.
"I don't know, Sam."
Sam frowned.
"Do you know who I am?"
The man shook his head.
"You know my name."
Again, he shook his head.
"You just said my name."
"No, I didn't."
Sam decided not to tell his name. He had to get to the bottom of this enigma.
"Tell me some of your names," Sam said.
"Loki is the one I like best," he reported.
"The trickster?" Sam asked cautiously.
"You could say that. I certainly fit the role."
"How so?"
"I- uh. I play tricks on people?"
Loki sounded unsure.
"What are you?" Sam asked.
"A pagan God," Loki said. But he winced as if he, too, had heard the hollow sound of his voice.
"Are you tired?" Sam asked.
"No." Loki sat up straighter. "Where are we?"
"The bunker. Safest place on Earth."
"I don't recognize it."
"You wouldn't," said Sam.
Sam sat across from Loki, deep in thought.
"What's on your mind?"
"Whether it's worth it to wake my brother."
"Nah," Loki said. "Don't. I like you better, anyway."
"Um, thanks. You haven't met him."
Loki shrugged.
"You remember anything?"
"Snippets from my life. Doing godly stuff, mostly. Playing one trick on someone… something about reliving days? And you."
"Me?"
"Yeah. You glaring, you smiling, and you saying something I can't hear. Three shots of you."
Sam stared. His eyes were starting to glaze over, and Loki noticed.
"You're tired."
"I don't do well on two hours of sleep."
"Go to sleep," Loki said. "I promise I won't even move. Actually…" Loki stood. "I get the feeling you'd rather sleep on the couch so you can keep an eye on me."
Sam gratefully took the couch.
"Goodnight, Sam," Loki said.
"You do know my name!" Sam said sleepily.
"What'd I say? No, I don't!"
"We'll figure you out, Gabe," Sam muttered.
Luckily, Loki didn't hear.
Somebody was shaking him awake.
"What, Dean? –oh. Loki."
"People are waking up," Loki said. "Don't wanna get shot, so I figured I'd let you diffuse the sitch."
"I should put a shirt on," Sam said to himself. He turned to walk to his room.
"Nah."
"Nah?"
"It's okay. No shirt necessary." Loki winked.
Oh. It was just Ga—him being himself.
Sam left and re-entered with a shirt.
Loki pouted.
"Cut the crap," Sam said, weirdly annoyed.
Dean stumbled in first.
"Dean," Sam said urgently. "It's Gabriel."
"What's Gabriel?"
Sam pointed.
Dean looked, then said a little too loud, "It's Gabriel!"
"Shh! He showed up here one a.m. last night, not remembering a thing. He thinks he's Loki."
Dean scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. "Cas's waking up."
Sam nodded. "You wanna go intercept him?"
"Yeah. Yeah."
Gabriel peered curiously across the room. (Sam gave up on pretending he didn't know who it was.)
"Dean-o?" he asked.
"Cas is waking up," Sam said. "Do you remember the hotel? The gathering of pagan Gods?"
"Yeah."
"Do you remember what happened?"
"Alcohol?" Gabriel suggested.
"You don't remember."
"Not a bit."
"Right. Is there anything you remember?"
"Life is starting to come back. Something about disco aliens. And a purpose."
"A purpose?"
"Yeah. Dunno what."
Sam nodded.
Castiel rushed in, dressed only in shorts that were too wide at the waist.
He stood stock-still and stared at his supernatural sibling.
"I remember you," Gabe said. "I like you. You're my favorite."
Castiel looked from Gabriel to Sam, and back, speechless.
Gabriel sauntered up to his brother. "You're weird."
"Loki…" Sam said softly, trying to catch somebody's… anybody's… eye.
Gabriel looked.
"Um, what do you remember about him?"
"He's my baby bro," Gabriel answered immediately, in the way that was instinctual. His consciousness took over again, and he said, "figuratively."
Castiel finally opened his mouth to speak. His voice was rough on the word, and it emerged frayed. "Literally."
Gabriel frowned. "I am a little brother. I don't have a little brother."
"You have many younger siblings," Castiel said softly.
Gabriel shook his head. "No, I don't think so."
"Loki," Sam said, using the word to remind Cas of Gabriel's lost memory, "there are things you don't remember."
"What do you remember?" Castiel asked.
"I remember watching," Gabriel said suddenly. "It was like watching Netflix. I watched you fight heroically, and I watched you throw things and yell, and crash, and be confused."
"You were… watching?"
"Yes. I know things. For example, you think Sam doesn't know. But he totally does."
Cas blushed.
"I don't care that you're with Dean," Sam felt compelled to add. "Loki, stop pretending you don't know my name!"
"But I don't!" Gabriel protested. "I don't know any of your names!"
"You don't know any names," Castiel said quietly.
Sam ran a hand down his face. "Loki, do you remember dying?"
Gabriel turned to look at him, eyes wide as if he'd been struck, and said, "Yeah."
Then he collapsed.
Sam caught him, easily lifting his small frame, and deposited him on the couch once again. Castiel rushed over and knelt by his brother. He ran a hand down Gabriel's arm.
"His grace is getting brighter."
"That's good, right?"
"Yes."
For an hour, they watched as he slept. After an hour, he woke up slowly and said, "Sorry, Sam."
"Why?" Sam asked.
"I still don't know. I'm sorry for something. And I remember your name."
"Oh, good," Sam said, rolling his eyes.
Gabriel stood up languidly, his petite form seeming to grow Sam-sized as he stretched.
"I'm sorry for making you watch Dean die, but that's not exactly it. I'm sorry about TV land too, but… there's something I'm not remembering."
Castiel walked in with Dean. Dean stood a step behind Castiel, his chest against Cas's shoulder.
God. They were That Couple. Sam shouldn't have said anything.
Castiel stared for a long moment before saying, "How are you?"
"Fine, thanks. There's something off about you."
"You… have said."
Cas looked down, and Sam figured there was a long history behind that 'you've said.'
Gabriel opened his mouth. Dean's arm encircled Cas protectively. Sam felt like rolling his eyes but refrained.
"You're not human, are you?" Gabriel accused.
Dean blinked, and quite suddenly, erupted with laughter.
"What did I say?" Gabriel asked. "He's not human, is he?" he demanded of Sam.
"Well… no. We expected you to say something else."
"Like what?"
Dean and Sam turned to Castiel.
"How I'm broken," Castiel explained.
"Whaaaat? No. Look at you, you're perfectly fine."
Castiel looked slightly taken aback. "You don't know what I've done," he said.
"Yeah, I do. I just don't remember."
"We gotta get your memory back somehow," Sam said.
"If he does not know what I am, it stands to reason…"
Castiel did not finish his sentence but Sam picked it up. He doesn't know he's an angel.
Sam looked from Cas to Dean to Gabriel.
"Gabriel…" he said, "you and Cas… you're brothers. You know that, right?"
"We really are brothers?"
"Yeah."
Gabriel looked down at his chest. "We can't be."
"Why not?"
"Because… oh, man. It's hard to explain. If you took the light inside him, just there-" Gabriel gestured to Cas's chest- "and you stretched it all the way out, he would be as big as the Empire State Building. You and Dean just fill your own space. I am somewhere in between."
Gabriel sized himself up, eyeing his "light" critically.
"You can't see it?" Castiel asked. "You are four times taller than me."
Gabriel didn't see it.
"Whatever," he said. "It's cool. I remembered a bit more of my purpose."
"What's your purpose?" Dean asked.
"Sam," Gabriel said.
"What, he gets a pocket angel too?" Catching a glare from Cas, he amended, "I'm sorry. You know I love you."
Sam shot him a glance at that.
"What? Shut your face."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were going to."
"That's touching," Gabriel said. "Anyway. I don't know where to go. Can I crash here for a bit?"
A bit turned into a week, while the Winchesters re-learned the name Loki and Castiel stuttered over the word. A week turned into a month of memories regained slowly (but none about angels). A month turned into two, and Gabriel learned that his purpose was to protect Sam Winchester, because Cas was clearly focused on Dean. Dean's crude remark had not been far off.
Two months turned into two months and two days, and Sam almost died.
He didn't, of course, but he lay dying, and Gabriel looked over him and panicked, and his power flew open. That was how he described it.
As colossal wings filled the hall, Gabriel, burning white, healed Sam.
Sam blinked awake.
"Gabe," he said, forgetting himself, seeing the wings.
"Sammy," Gabriel said. "I am, aren't I?"
"What?"
"Gabriel."
"You remember."
Sam sat up.
The ancient, chiming grandfather clock, a faithful tool during this hunt, sang its four part song and struck twelve times.
Gabriel leaned over. "You know," he said, "I'm supposed to be the Cassie to your Dean. Aren't I?"
"I guess so," Sam said, having discussed this once with Gabriel. They'd finally determined he was brought back to split the Winchester-minding duties halfsies with Cas.
"Well, they're dating, aren't they?"
Sam nodded, standing. He held out a hand to Gabriel, who took it and stood as well.
"You remember everything now, huh."
"Well, yeah."
"There's something you don't remember," Sam said. "Because I never told you. I know Cas always heard Dean's prayers. Even the ones Dean thought he didn't. He told me, but he doesn't remember because he was drunk." Sam laughed. "Memory is a strange thing."
"What don't I know?" Gabriel demanded.
"Well, I learned how to school my thoughts and avoid praying. If I wanted to-"
"What don't I know?"
"You're impatient." Sam frowned. He looked down on Gabriel. It was rather intimidating, Gabriel thought.
"Anyway, you aren't nearly as good at hiding because you don't think you need to. Offhand comments to Dean translate to jokes to me. I know things, Gabriel."
Gabriel was suddenly worried. What had he told Dean? What did Sam know?
"What don't I remember?" he asked a fourth time, unable to help himself.
"You think we should follow Dean and Cas's example. Including the kissing, and sappy dates, and especially the sex."
Gabriel flinched. To hear a mess of inner monologuing laid unforgivingly bare… Sam must be telling him, politely, that
"And I have to agree."
What
Did
Sam
Say?
Gabriel looked up, up into Sam's eyes, only to find they weren't that far away at all, because Sam was leaning down for a kiss.
Two months and two days turned into two months and three days, and Sam asked Gabriel out.
(Gabriel said yes.)
"How did I score an archangel?" Sam wondered, easily lifting his much smaller boyfriend.
"How did I score a Winchester?" Gabriel parroted, wrapping his legs around Sam.
Sam shrugged. "Well, I always end up with the weird ones."
Gabriel leaned away, forcing Sam to boost him up by holding onto his butt. Gabriel grinned. "Cheeky. I was going to act affronted…"
Sam rolled his eyes. "I'll drop you."
"You won't."
"Watch me."
Gabriel let go of Sam and drifted to the ground.
"Dad, it's good to be back."
Sam shook his head. "I didn't know I missed you until you came here without a memory."
"Then what?"
"Then I wanted your memory back so I could tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"Tell you I like you."
Gabriel laughed.
"I like you, too."
You wanna know why Sam kept forgetting Gabriel wasn't Gabriel?
Because it was late and I could barely write coherent sentences.
You wanna know why Destiel?
Because Destiel.
Tip: life is like a lemon; it is round and yellow and tastes good on fish.