Bait and Switch

A Supernatural/Thor Crossover

Disclaimer: Supernatural goes to the CW. Thor goes to Marvel and minions.

Summary: Lucifer's greatest sin was pride. After millennia in the Cage, did he really think Gabriel wouldn't learn anything new?

A/N- In this reality Loki already knew he wasn't Aesir due to Gabriel, so he didn't have an identity crisis. He's still pissed at Odin, though, for being a douche about it and not telling him, then going into convenient Odinsleep when he finally has the opportunity to confront him about it.

Even with his vessel falling apart, his brother is just as beautiful as Gabriel remembers. He shines out from the battered meat suit, Grace and Power, like the most wondrous butterfly breaking out of a weather beaten cocoon. Any other angel, except perhaps Micheal and Raphael, would find themselves humbled by it. They would take knee and prostrate themselves crying in supplication to the light.

But none of them walked with Father. It's sad that so few of his siblings know, but that's faith for you, so when they look at Lucifer they don't see that the light isn't greatness. It is Sin. Hubris, Lucifer's greatest flaw, wrapped around the older angel as a shining breastplate of denial, and it makes Gabriel want to puke. He wonders what happened to the big brother that taught him to fly, that walked with him through the garden and said these are all Father's creatures, to be cherished and protected. Will you do that, little brother? Will you help me?

So what makes humanity so different from the lion and the lamb and the dolphin? Broken and flawed? Maybe, but weren't they all? Only God was perfect. Gabriel held back a snort of derision as he crept toward Lucifer's back, grace nervously pulling at the concealing threads of magic that have become more familiar to him than his old, winged form.

"Brother," Lucifer says with a sigh, but there is no real regret in it. His brother is just going through the motions as he looks over Gabriel's double. "Don't make me do this."

His double, one who is more a brother to Gabriel than Lucifer or Micheal ever were -At this point Gabriel doesn't need a reason to shank Heaven's General, apocalypse or no apocalypse.- gives Lucifer a pitying smirk. "No one makes us do anything." And the copy flips the short blade in his hands, squaring his shoulders and playing the determined puppy to the hilt. Gabriel couldn't have done it better.

"I know you think you're doing the right thing, Gabriel." Lucifer continues as Gabriel raises his own blade far higher than necessary, because when it all comes down to it nothing sells the act better than dramatics. "But I know where your heart truly lies."

And Lucifer spins around, completely ignoring the Gabriel in front of him, and catches real Gabriel's hand in a move that is made fluid by countless years -thousands upon thousands- of drills and practice. They are soldiers, and Gabriel winces with shock and true disbelief as his brother twists his arm around and stabs him in the chest. Even though they were fighting, despite all the death he has witnessed, a part of Gabriel still believed that Lucifer, his big brother, would spare him. Walk away. Dump the irritating little brother in a time out, like Micheal had done to Lucifer himself all those years ago.

"Here."

There's a silvery sword piercing his heart, the very center of his grace, and Gabriel suddenly feels a crushing weight that he had happily ignored for the past two thousand or so odd years. Over Lucifer's shoulder, his double shares with him a look of surprise -even he hadn't expected such familial brutality- before a sad understanding fills his eyes.

Lucifer watches, smug, as Gabriel sags in place. The sword in his chest is the only thing keeping him balanced. The Messenger forces himself to focus past the pain and his flaring grace that longs to push the offending weapon out and begin healing the damage. "Amateur hocus pocus. Don't forget, you learned all your tricks from me, little brother." He jerks the blade out, and Gabriel falls back, straining to suck in a breath.

Lucifer's biggest flaw was pride; his belief in the infallibility of himself. Gabriel marvels at the fact Lucifer thinks he's just been sitting on his ass all these years, twiddling his thumbs and waiting for daddy to send him on a memo run. Yes, Gabriel is the Messenger. Gabriel is the fastest, and smoothest, the silver tongue of the celestial choirs, but when Dad wanted some humans smote who did he send? When the giants of the old religions went rampaging through creation, who fought them to a stand still? Who cast out the hypocrites and brought low kings? Gabriel had been on the front lines longer than Lucifer could imagine.

Lucifer may have laid the foundations, but Gabriel hadn't stopped there. Gabriel had never stopped learning, never stopped improving himself, because as he was fond of teaching humans there is always someone better.

The look on Lucifer's face as Gabriel's sword pierces his back is something sweet. Lucifer's mouth opens wide, yet no scream emerges, until finally he gasps out, "How?"

Gabriel gets up, still woozy, and backs away from his dying brother while dabbing at his own still bleeding chest. The fake blade clatters to the ground as Lucifer turns his head to the double. Slowly, Gabriel's image melts away and the figure holding the angel-killer is tall, taller than Gabriel, with dark hair and piercing green eyes. When he vindictively jerks Gabriel's blade from Lucifer's body he does it such a way that the edge cuts through bone and lung, nearly tearing the Morningstar in two.

With a flash that chars the room, the Light Bringer's soul vanishes into the ether. It's ironic, Gabriel muses. Fire giant with propensity for ice killed by ice giant with propensity for fire.

He still feels a little shaky. The fake he'd used on Lucifer had been much more than a few cans of diet orange slice -had to be, to fool an angel- and he doesn't think he'll be back to his renegade ways for a few days, yet. The trickster carefully cleans Gabriel's blade with conjured flame, burning the blood and viscera from the weapon, and flips it around to offer it handle first to the archangel. Gabriel holds up his hands as if in surrender. He tries to swallow back some throw up and shakes his head. "Nah. That thing can kill me. You keep it."

Loki -because that's who it is, the real, original- Loki blinks at him. He nods, slowly, and slim artist's fingers curl around the blade as though it was the most precious of objects. It is a symbol of trust, the strongest gesture Gabriel can give, and if Gabriel owes anyone that trust it is the being standing before him. They know what it is like to have brothers that constantly outshine you, to be relegated to the shadows, to do the dirty work. It is how they met, oh-so-long-ago, on those battlefields of ice.

Loki slips the angel killer into the folds of his robes and comes up beside Gabriel to help support him. Gabriel would have flown out, but his wings can only give a weak tremble and with a twisting step Loki takes them onto the branches of Yggdrasil.

"Castiel? Son of the Nameless God?" Whispers a sibilant voice that brings Castiel out of his contemplation of the futility of existence. He sits up in his hospital bed and focuses on a man that is not a man. There's enough other left in him for that, at least, and Castiel stiffens as the morphine starts to wear off.

"Pagan."

The pagan god smirks and nods. He's wearing an odd mix of leather, metal, and silk for the current age but it is obviously what he's comfortable in. Dark hair falls around his chin, and in an abstract way Castiel recognizes that there is something about the small god that is strangely appealing. The fallen angel considers what weapons are available to him before deciding that in his current condition if the creature wishes to kill him it would be pathetically simple.

Instead, the pagan sketches a short bow and smiles. "I am Loki Odinson, your brother wanted me to ask how you feel about 'witness protection'."

"My brother?" It appears he won't be dying today. Castiel is surprised. He isn't sure whether it is a pleasant one or not.

"I believe you call him Gabriel."

Castiel has to think about that. Gabriel went missing, and has been presumed dead, for so long. Presumed captured and destroyed by the agents of the Adversary. Instead, he had been hiding out on earth posing as... well, as the being patiently waiting for Castiel's answer. "The apocalypse?" He asks, because he has to know before he makes a choice. He doesn't know how much help he will be without his angel powers, but he is a soldier, and fighting and intrigue are all he knows. He can't run and hide. It isn't his nature. Even if all he can do is stand in the way to buy Sam and Dean time to think, it is what he will do.

Loki crosses his arms and something oddly soft touches his expression. "Taken care of. You don't give your brother near enough credit. None of you do." The last is whispered, but Castiel knows every last word rings true. He cannot hear Heaven, but he can still feel the earth, dimly, and all the sickness that has been growing for the last few years is slowly dissipating.

Lucifer is dead. Micheal didn't do it. They wouldn't still be standing here if he had.

"The Winchesters-?"

"Alive."

"Okay." Because he wants to talk to his brother, maybe the only one that will talk to him, and he wants to know why his vessel is leaking wetness all over his face. Loki touches his shoulder briefly, a healing warmth goes through him to kindle a spark of grace that somehow, someway, has managed to cling to him through it all and Castiel shudders. Loki moves over to a closet and begins taking out Castiel's -Jimmy's- clothing and laying it out.

"First," Loki comments as Castiel struggles into his clothing, "I want to test a theory. You are the angel-" The godling waves his hand to cut off any self-depreciating comments Castiel's spite might cause him to make. "Of Thursday, correct?" Castiel nods. "Then we need to make a pit stop in New Mexico. My brother has recently made an ass of himself, which opens up the most intriguing opportunity. Truly. I know it won't get you your angel magicks back, but it will make you more than formidable."

Castiel gets the impression that Loki thinks of angels in a similar vein to how Dean thinks of them. Dicks. Possibly stupid dicks, too. Somehow the idea soothes him, and as Castiel puts his arm through his coat sleeve and curiously follows Loki through a hole in space-time, he thinks things just might work out.

Whatever Loki and Gabriel expect him to do with the big hammer he retrieves from a human outpost, he has no idea.

End.