AN: The cover to this story is from wikipedia, so this is the first time I haven't drawn one. This story has Sam with drawing skills. If I'm not lazy, I'll probably draw the pictures being referred to out because that was mostly the point of describing them. Inspired by the 12th century depiction of curly haired Gabriel who looks literally nothing like our Gabriel. Probably Sabriel.


After the apocalypse that wasn't, everyone sort of wasn't sure what to do with themselves. Sam and Dean decided to take a two year break. In reality they weren't sure how long it would last, but two years seemed like a good vacation. Of course, they could only go so long without nearly driving themselves mad not hunting anything. They managed to stay at Bobby's for about a month before they were tossed out on their asses. Then Castiel sent Balthazar to help, and, well, they bought a big white house and maybe some very endowed politicians noticed some of their funds went missing, but all in all not so bad.

Dean couldn't last longer than two weeks without going for an extensive drive in the impala and hunting something, so he sporadically took jobs from Cas. Sam decided against trying to finish law school. It would be hell faking an actual identity, and that seemed like a far away time when he'd thought he could run away from his fears instead of face them.

Anyways, he took to learning how to draw.

It was a stupid, pleasing past-time - nothing serious, just simple and stress free. He never mentioned it to anyone, of course.

Castiel returned to heaven and tried to work through things there. Then Raphael tried to bully him back into submission. He refused and was subsequently beat down. He showed up to their house, ordered them to stay, covered the place in so many sigils Dean swore they should pay him for the paint job (he didn't even stop to ask what Dean meant), and wouldn't ask or even let them help.

The only reason they stayed put was because he practically begged them to. Dean made him promise not to do anything stupid (then, apparently, after Cas left, Croweley showed up and tried to haggle him into a deal - for Purgatory! what the hell?! Naturally Castiel told him to shove it.) and then the waiting game was on. Three weeks. Dean was about to run up the walls from boredom when Castiel showed up with the most unlikely person ever.

Well, not a person per se.

Dean almost shut the door on Gabriel's grinning face (of course, he had insisted that they arrive and enter normally, "Cassie, it's more dramatic this way." "I do not understand. We are not trying to be dramatic."). But, after all the yelling, shouting, and crying (Gabriel made everyone cry, including Castiel, because he was disappointed with the dismal amount of drama he'd received upon his arrival. Sam had secretly been glad that Gabriel had returned, especially if it was to help Castiel with Heaven. Gabriel had looked up at him and winked. Freaking mindreading) had stopped and they had all sat around the small round coffee table with steaming mugs of hot cocoa (courtesy of one archangel), everything was explained.

Raphael was now more inclined to believe that God was not so much dead as purposefully missing in action as it was entirely out of either Michael's or Lucifer's abilities to raise an archangel - especially from the pit. Also, considering that fact that Lucifer had killed him in the first place... Naturally Raphael was stubborn, but he'd relented when Gabriel went 'The Archangel of Judgement' on his ass, and now Heaven was slowly trying to fix itself and decide what to do.

The most relieved was Castiel, who had "No idea how to explain free will to the others. It was...frustrating. Explaining freedom to angels is a bit like explaining poetry to fish." (Gabriel howled at that, laughed until there were tears in his eyes, clapped a confused Castiel on the back, who kept saying, "No, Gabriel, you are an archangel, your stomach cannot physically hurt from laughter." in bewilderment every time Gabriel insisted that he couldn't breath. Which only made Gabriel laugh harder.)

All in all, it was pretty good. Even if a partially insane trickster-norse god-archangel visited on the weekends.

And no matter how much Dean complained, they knew they really weren't bad off.