Prequelish to The Eternity Between. You don't have to read both though. This is the Sam/Gabriel bit (with maybe a teeny hint at Dean/Cas), while that is the Dean/Cas one (with bits of Sam/Gabriel). This takes place a few months before that. Doesn't matter though, you can read what you want, when you want.
Once again, the way something is in my head does not translate well into text. I hope you enjoy this more than I do.
The Angel on His Shoulder
There was a demon sitting on Sam Winchester's shoulder. Not just any demon. It was the Lucifer. The Devil sat on Sam's shoulder. Sometimes he told him to do bad things. Mostly he tried to convince the hunter that he was insane, the he was still in hell and that the world was just his mind's way of escaping.
But there was an angel on his other shoulder. And angle who told him that everything was okay, that the world is real, that he got lucky and escaped hell.
Sam was never sure who to believe.
When Bobby died, Sam was pretty sure that it was all real. Why would his mind make something like that up? How could the death of his would-be father be his mind's way of making things okay?
Or maybe Bobby's death was just hell slipping through the illusion he'd created for himself. Maybe its just part of the torture.
His angel comforted him when he couldn't sleep. When the pain of loss gets to be too much. When the devil's words start to get to him. He'd always there to help. Sammy pretended otherwise, but the nightmares got better when his angel arrived.
"I'm real, Sammy," his angel told him sometimes. The devil sometimes said it, too. Sam tried not to believe either of them. But the devil was good at playing tricks, and, yeah, he kinda wanted to believe the angel was real, so mostly, he's convinced they both were real. Even when he tried to convince himself otherwise.
Sam picked up one of the darts Dean has been playing with earlier.
"If you were real," he said, throwing the dart right through the angel's face. It passed right through him and hit the wall. "That would have hurt."
"Hey now," the angel said, flopping onto the bed. "Just because I'm non-corporeal and floating around in your head doesn't mean I'm not real. And, for the record, that did hurt. It hurt that you would throw a dart at me and not even pretend to apologize."
"Sorry," Sam muttered.
"That's better."
Deep down, Sam knew the angel wasn't real. He wanted to believe that he was, that somehow he got lucky, or that the universe, just this once, was kind. But he knew better. There was nothing kind about the universe and since when were the Winchesters ever lucky? His angel was dead, so he couldn't be real.
"It's an Antemorph," the angel told him one day while they were working a particularly difficult case. Al the clues they'd found didn't mesh with anything monster they'd ever dealt with, or anything Sam had found on the internet thus far.
"Why are you ignoring me?" his angel asked after several minutes. "I'm trying to help you."
"Because I've never heard of an antemorph," Sam replied as he searched the internet for some indication as to what it might be.
"Of course you haven't!" his angel exclaimed. "No one has. They haven't existed in several thousand years. You're not gonna find anything in that little magic box of yours."
"If no one has ever heard of them, how come you have?" Sam asked him absently. He knew his angel wasn't real. The conversations was moot.
"Because I've existed since the beginning of time! Because I was there are the battle of Nikataru when the Antemorphs destroyed 47 of my brothers and sister. I was there when we defeated the last of them!"
"That's impossible," Sam said.
"I'm an Angel, Sammy," he reminded him, as if he could forget.
"You aren't real!" Sam shouted back at him. "You're just in my head; you can't know something if I don't know it!"
The angel and the hunter glared at one another for a few moments.
"I get it," his angel finally said, calmly now. "You don't think I'm real. I'm just a figment of your imagination because you're bat shit insane. Guess what, Sammy. Its gonna be fun proving you wrong."
With that, he was gone.
Sam frowned. What the hell was that supposed to mean? He shook his head. Not that he was alone with some peace and quiet, he could get some real research done.
His peace only lasted twenty minutes before Dean returned fro m the morgue.
"Guess what I found lurking in the candy store?" he said, entering the motel room. Sam looked up at him, hoping he had found some vital clue that would blow the case wide open. What stood in the doorway was far from what he was expecting.
"It's our friendly neighborhood trickster," Dean said, his expression somewhere between a smile and a grimace, leaning toward the latter.
Sam stood up, confused. "Wait… you mean… you can see him?"
Dean blinked. "Of course I can see him. His right there. You okay, Sammy?"
"Yeah, Sammy, are you okay?" his angel asked.
For a moment, Sam opened and closed his mouth several times.
"Told you I'd have fun proving you wrong," the Trickster grinned.
"What on earth are you talking about?" Dean asked, thoroughly confused.
"Nothing," Sam said hurriedly. "What are you doing here?"
"Helping you numbnuts, of course," the archangel said. "This thing you boys are hunting, its called an antemorph-"
"A wha-?" Dean asked.
"Shh," Gabriel said, tapping his forefinger to his lips. "They were supposed to have been destroyed a long time ago, before I left Heaven."
"So what are they doing back?" Dean asked. Gabriel effortlessly materialized a bright orange rubber duck into Dean's mouth, effectively shutting him up.
"They're abominations," Gabriel continued, while Dean struggled with the duck, which seemed to be magically held in place.
"How are they back?" Sam asked.
"I would be willing to bet the Leviathan brought them here to cause some chaos."
Dean made an incomprehensible noise. Why did Sammy get to talk?
Gabriel ignored him. "These things are more dangerous that almost anything you've ever encountered. Probably more dangerous than me."
Dean made an exasperated sound, then more gibberish words. How do we stop them?
"You don't!" Gabriel exclaimed. "Did you not hear what just said. They're insanely powerful. It took most of Heaven's power to take them down last time. Consider yourselves lucky there are only two here, and that you've got someone on your side who's found them before. However, its not gonna be easy. There were many weapons forged by Heaven to combat them, but finding them is going to be tricky."
"You don't know where they are?" Sam asked.
"I've been detached from Heaven too long. They've been moved and I haven't found where yet. And it's not as though I can just ask someone. It's too bad Cassie is gone, he'd make things a bit easier."
Sam's eyes widened at the mention of Cas and he shook his head almost imperceptibly. Talk of Cas in front of Dean was asking for trouble.
"How 'bout this," Gabriel said, ignoring the look on Sam's face. "You boys go find yourselves another creepy crawly, while I deal with this."
Dean made a series of noises that even Sam couldn't understand. He sent Gabriel a look that clearly said that it was time to let Dean talk. The duck popped out of his mouth.
"Why are you helping us?" Dean asked suspiciously. "Your track record isn't exactly stellar."
"Have you no faith in me?" the angel asked.
"No," Dean replied harshly. It didn't matter that he'd helped them with the pagan gods, Dean still hadn't forgiven him for all the other crap he'd put them through.
The trickster raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Suddenly, the Winchesters and all their belongings were in a different motel room and the archangel was nowhere to be seen.
"What the hell," Dean said. "Where are we?"
Sam looked out the window. "Allenaville," he said. "Two towns over. I was reading about a series of suspicious death here. We should look into it."
"And just forget the case we've been working on for three days?"
"You heard Gabriel, he's handling it."
"And you trust him?" Dean asked, making a skeptic face Sam was all too familiar with.
(The Angel on His Shoulder)
The dreams weren't always terrible, not like they were in the beginning, but they were still pretty brutal at time. Sam likes the difficult cases, and the weird ones, because it means he doesn't get as much sleep. He worked himself to the point that he just passed out from exhaustion. Or until Dean realized what he was doing and slipped him drugs (it had only happened twice).
This particular case was a standard haunting, though it took nearly four days to close. The brothers agreed to drive back to Canton and check on Gabriel after a few hours rest. Sam would have preferred to head over right then, seeing that they had yet to hear back from the Archangel, and he wasn't really feeling up to sleep, but he couldn't deny that he was tired and rest probably was a good idea.
The dreams weren't always terrible. But controlling them was a hell of a lot harder than controlling the hallucinations. When he was awake, he could force the images away (usually), but in the darkness behind his eyelids, he had little control over the nightmares that plagued him.
They were nightmares. Always. There were no good night, just slightly less bad nights. And, though Dean actually tried to sleep most nights, Sam knew that his dreams were plagued with nightmares too. Tonight was no different. While Sam lay in his bed, only half trying to sleep, he could clearly hear Dean tossing and turning and making various sounds of discomfort. Sam wished there was something he could do for his brother, but he knew there was nothing.
It wasn't long before Sam finally dozed off, too. As much as he didn't want to sleep, he was tired, and he needed it.
He didn't know how long he slept before the nightmares came, but it felt almost instantaneous.
There was fire and burning and pain and blood and tears. Lucifer played games with his head. He burned. He watched Dean burn. Sam curled into a ball as the fires consumed him. He couldn't handle this. He wanted to scream.
Slowly, the pain began to subside. For a few sweet moments, the torture was gone and there was only bliss. As he awoke, he became faintly aware of a pair of arms wrapped around him. And, if he wasn't mistaken, wings.
"Hey, Kiddo," the angel greeted with a smile when Sam looked up at him.
"Gabriel…" Sam replied. "What are you doing here?"
"Heard you screaming," he said.
"I was screaming?" Sam asked, looking around to Dean, but found his bed to be empty. "Where's Dean?"
"Antarctica," Gabriel replied. Sam hoped he was joking. "And yes, you screamed. Just not out loud."
"You could hear me screaming in my dream?"
Gabriel shrugged. "Don't act so surprised. It's not as though it's the first time."
"So, wait," Sam said, a realization hitting him. "You're telling me that you came running because I had a nightmare? That's why you've been floating around in my head the last few months!"
Gabriel looked pointedly at everything but Sam. "Yeah, what of it?"
Sam couldn't help but smile a little as he relaxed into the archangel's chest. He couldn't see the wings, but he could feel them tighten around him.
"Have you found the weapon?" Sam asked, closing his eyes.
"Yep," the angel nodded. "Right before I came here. I'll gank the mothers in a bit."
"Let me come with you," the hunter said.
"No way."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because it's too dangerous. I'm not letting you in that."
"Oh, but it's okay for you?"
"I'm an archangel," he reminded him. "You're-"
"I'm what? Just a human?"
Gabriel let out a laugh. "You are far from just a human," he said. "But you will be easy pickings for these guys."
"You said they killed 47 angels. How is it any less dangerous for you?"
"There were more of them then. Now it's just two. Two of them against one of me. I'll be fine."
"Please let me come with you."
Gabriel sighed. He really hated it when he said 'please'; he never knew how to say no. "Fine. But not just yet. Relax a few more minutes."
"Really, where is Dean?" he asked a few moments later.
"I told you," the Trickster grinned. "Antarctica."
Sam sat straight up. Why had he even considered the possibility that he'd been joking.
"Bring him back!" he exclaimed.
"But, but-" the Trickster pouted.
"Now!"
He sighed. "Fine." He snapped his fingers. Dean materialized in the middle of the room, shivering. "Happy?"
"What the hell, man?" Dean cried, shaking madly.
"I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not."
Sam glared at him.
"What?" Gabriel cried. "You'd rather me lie? That doesn't seem like something a good person would do."
"And since when are you a good person?" Sam asked as Dean ran into the bathroom with the intent of taking the hottest shower known to man.
"I'm helping you with the Antemorph case, aren't I?"
"Yeah, but I'm still not entirely convinced you're doing it out of the kindness of your heart."
"Maybe I'm not, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm doing it, does it?" Gabriel stood up and walked over to Sam. "Shall we?"
Sam quickly shouted to Dean that they were leaving to take care of the monsters. Dean was almost too cold to care, but by the time he responded, they were already gone.
(The Angel on His Shoulder)
"Ow," Sam said a few hours later when they rematerialized in the motel. Gabriel helped him hobble to the bed, where he promptly fell into the mattress. "Ow," he said again.
"I told you you shouldn't have come with me," Gabriel said, grabbing the first aid kit the Winchester was pointing to.
"Yeah, yeah," Sam said, taking the kit and pulling out the necessities. "Couldn't you do something about this?" he asked, indicating to the large gash in his leg.
"Short answer: no, long answer: yes."
"So, you can, but to do so would alert Heaven to your existence?" Sam asked as he disinfected the wound.
"Exactly. Some things just don't go unnoticed by the powers that be."
"But transporting Dean to Antarctic does?"
Gabriel shrugged. "Where is Dean-o?"
"Probably went out to get pie."
Sam spent a few more minutes stitching and bandaging the wound, then began to tidy up his mess.
"I got it," Gabriel offered, taking the pile of bloody rags so Sam didn't have to get up to discard them.
"Thanks," Sam said, leaning back into the bed.
"You should rest," Gabriel said, walking toward the door. "I'll leave you alone."
"Or you could stay," Sam said, trying not to sound as though he was begging him to.
"Hmm, would you like that, Sammy?" the angel said with a flirtatious smile.
"I sleep better when you're here," Sam said. He paused. "And I like having you around."
"What will Dean-o think of that?"
"I don't care what he thinks. Stay?"
Gabriel smiled and joined Sam in the bed. He wrapped first his arms around the hunter, then his wings, and the two of them drifted off into a dreamless slumber.