This is a ficlet in the same setting as Gates of Bronze and Bars of Iron, however you don't need to read that to understand the fic.
If you haven't read that, then the things you need to know are:
This is set in a future time where everyone is dead and in Heaven including Gabriel and Raphael. Also, Lucifer's Cage could be accessed in Heaven. Finally all of Heaven is referred to with a capital H, individual heavens on the other hand, are not capitalized.
Thanks to The Hope Lions who looked it over for readability. I'm so sorry for the capitonyms.
Pies, Rings, and Heavenly Things
Dean stared open mouthed at his heaven's kitchen. He was watching Cas flail about trying to put out small fires and wave away the smoke that came from—at least three separate places.
Dean didn't know if he should comment on the dead geese on the kitchen table (brought down by arrows still sticking through them), the mound of black berries and apples, or even the oven on fire.
The bad thing about patterning his heaven's kitchen after an ancient underground bunker had its lows. The lack of a range hood was one of it. Dean waved the smoke while Cas put out the last of the fires by dowsing it with water. Dean winced.
The good thing about it being in Heaven was the room was already trying to mend itself when the fire was put out. Cas turned around slowly before sheepishly putting down the large soup pot he'd used to douse the flames. Dean just raised an eyebrow. "When you said you wanted to use the kitchen I assumed that you knew what you were doing."
"I've never had to cook in my entire life Dean." Castiel pointed out as he took a couple of mittens from the cupboard, looked at the entire pot that he just burnt, grimaced at the smell, and threw it away.
"Then why are you butchering my kitchen?" Dean asked incredulously, because really he had to know.
"Technically, I butchered the geese," the angel corrected him as he went back towards the geese laid out on the table. Dean supposed that Cas has been blowing up the kitchen since he'd asked permission to use it, and Dean had just blissfully ignored him until the entire ruckus became unbearable.
But other than the burning the kitchen to smithereens bit, Castiel worked wonders with a knife. He already had his current goose freshly plucked and was rinsing the bird before turning around and cutting through the feet by its joints and through the tendons and finally by the head. Dean sympathized with the goose, especially if it was going to end up as a charred nothing. "Yeah, Cas, whatever. What are you making?"
"Roasted geese in apples and…" Castiel hesitated, looked back towards Dean who was already checking if the oven was going to be functional by the time Castiel was done prepping his fowl and said, "blackberry and apple pie."
Dean stopped from his crouch and went back towards the counter. "You're making pie? 'Cuz I love pie."
"Yes, Dean. I don't think anybody could have forgotten your fierce attraction to pie." Castiel laughed as he pointed towards the mounds of blackberries and apples.
Dean grimaced. "Blackberry and apple pie meaning one blackberry and one apple pie or like blackberries and apples together?"
"Together."
Yeah, Dean was afraid of that. He was never a fan of blackberries, but hey, it was Cas' pet project and there were a lot of blackberries. "Why are you making food? 'Cuz last I heard you didn't need to eat."
Cas sighed as he threw away all the inedible insides and left his freshly butchered goose sans arrow at the middle of the table before regarding Dean. "You're worse than a four year old."
Huh. So there were no answers for that then. "Do you have a recipe somewhere? Because I'm not letting you kill the pie."
Cas brightened at the prospect of help and wiped his hands on a towel before extracting a folded card from his pocket and handing it over to Dean. "Make sure to use all the blackberries Dean."
"All of them?" Dean asked dubiously looking at the recipe—which called for 12 ounces—and at the blackberry pile—which looked like it could fill ten pies. "We could eat them with cream or something."
Cas shook his head before going over to the sink and thoroughly rinsing the goose again. At least Cas seemed to have picked up butchering as a skill even if he didn't understand much about cooking. He would finish with that goose in less than ten minutes flat. "No. Blackberries should be eaten before tomorrow, so if we don't use it for pie, that's all going to the trash."
"But—" Dean decided that arguing about it right now was not going to help matters when there were ten pies that needed baking. The oven seemed to have mended itself during their conversation. "How hot do you need your oven?"
"Um," Cas paused. "Isn't there just an on switch and it just… cooks?"
Dean hung his head. Obviously the angel needed more supervision than two recipe cards. "Do you have a recipe for your goose?"
After the entire mix up with the oven, Dean just commandeered both recipes and ordered Castiel around. To Castiel's credit, he did well with the cutting and seasoning. As long as he was just mixing ingredients and not doing anything complicated—like caramelizing the apples, or "tossing" them in goose fat—then Cas did the job fine.
Cas even showed him a cross-section of an apple with its core forming a five-pointed star. Dean had never seen an apple halved that way before, so it was his first time seeing it. Once while Castiel was looking at he pies, Dean heard him mumble something along the lines of: "Prosperity for the family. Mystery of Michael. Protection of the Trinity."
"Dude, are you chanting over my pies?" Dean asked incredulously.
Cas looked up from the oven and raised an eyebrow. "I'm reciting traditional words."
"Ah huh." So it was some sort of traditional angel thing? Maybe a coming-of-age type ritual or something. But that was ridiculous; Cas was probably old enough of an angel to be called an adult already. "Stop chanting over my pie. It's weird, Cas."
Once they were just waiting for the pies and the geese to finish roasting and baking in their respective ovens—they had commandeered both the bunker's oven and the lake house's oven—Dean and Cas set the timer and fell on the couch.
"I am not rolling out another pie dough," Dean complained, rotating his shoulder and glaring daggers at Castiel who was giving him an annoyed huff. "Why couldn't you have just snapped those all to existence, huh?"
"I'm not an archangel. I can't snap things into existence, even in Heaven," Cas explained patiently. "And you've never eaten either recipes before, so you couldn't have 'snapped' them."
But making one and just replicating them would have been better than making all four—the number that he and Cas had agreed upon was reasonable. Dean had convinced Cas to just give away all the extra blackberries to the rest of the neighboring heavens so that they could consume his hoard. "What are you going to do with all that pie?"
"You can have one." Cas paused to think then decided, "Gabriel can have one too."
"You're giving pie to Gabriel?" Dean sat up straighter and looked at Cas in disbelief. The angel just nodded in affirmation. Dean did not just toil hours in baking pie and roasting geese just to give it to the douchebag. "Pie. To Gabriel?"
"Truncating the sentence doesn't make the question clearer, Dean."
Dean gave out a strangled groan. "There's something both blasphemous and sacrilegious about handing pie to Gabriel."
Castiel gave Dean a look of reprimand. "It's not a savory pie. You're giving it to Gabriel. The only way to make the piemore exalted is if it was made out of candy."
Dean spluttered. There might have been a joke there somewhere, but there were times when you seriously did not want to look into Cas' humor too closely. "It can exalt in my stomach!"
"You can have two pies?"
What went through Dean's meticulous thought process was: two pies? That was awesome! Two pies are better than one pie, even if both of them had blackberries. But Gabriel! But two pies! To which end he muttered, "I still think angel douches that tried to kill me more than a hundred times don't deserve pie."
oOo
That entire conversation didn't help him understand either, when Castiel sneaked them out of the third heaven and brought him to a stable for one garrison, hiding behind a freaking haystack, eyeing a horse.
"This is the dumbest idea you've ever dragged me into," Dean whispered as they looked at the corralled horse. Meaning someone owned it, meaning some angelic douchebag who probably held grudges owned the probably sentient horse. "And believe me, I have my share of dumb ideas."
When there was a lack of response, Dean looked back and noted that Cas was not beside him. Dean stared in horror at the empty spot, which had previously been occupied by his currently crazy angel. "Cas, you're killing me."
"Obtaining a horse in Heaven does not construe as me killing you," Castiel clarified.
Dean jumped because he was not expecting Castiel—who was now holding two horses—to speak up right behind him. The angel's captives nickered and eyed Dean. "Why do you have two horses? Where did the other one come from?"
"Oh, Sleipnir?" Castiel rubbed the nose of a grey horse with a white snip between its muzzle. Dean filed away the question of why Cas needed two horses for later…. When there was less possibility of smiting. "This is Gabriel's horse. I sensed your reluctance stealing Raphael's so I went ahead and stole Gabriel's before you could object."
For the second time that day, Dean spluttered, and maybe gave another strangled groan. He had been talking to a perfectly sensible angel yesterday—where did that perfectly sensible angel go? Before Dean could object more, Sleipnir knelt down and angled his head towards his back. Something that he'd been assured repeatedly was very difficult for a horse since most of their weight was planted on their forelegs. "Wait, what?"
"See, Sleipnir has given you consent. We have to stable them and feed them tonight, Dean. We can let them graze near the lake house," Castiel informed the hunter as Cas mounted the roan, which was darker than Sleipnir's, beside him.
Dean hastily mounted his own horse, but before Dean could utter a protest they were at the lake house already and Sleipnir was bending his forelegs to give Dean better access to the ground. He would have argued with the horse that he grew up in Kansas and he at least knew how to mount and dismount properly, if not ride, but he doubted that Sleipnir was going to let him explain.
Dean blinked a couple of times while scrambling down. "Are you crazy? I doubt Gabriel is going to be bribed by pie! Put them back!"
Castiel tilted his head. "I'm not bribing Gabriel with pie."
Dean waved back to the horse, who seemed to be looking at the whole exchange with amusement. Dean didn't even know how he knew that it was amusement, because Dean was in full-blown panic. "That's worse! I am not going to be blown up into tiny molecular pieces because you got a hankering to be a horse thief!"
Castiel blinked. "As long as we return the horses safely, you're not going to be blown into tiny molecules."
Dean threw up his hands in defeat, he looked at Sleipnir whose ears were pricked in interest and whose eyes were tracking both him and the angel. "Look, you can have all the grass you want. I don't have horse blankets or whatever, but make yourself at home. I'm pretty sure you don't need to get tied to a tree or something." Sleipnir gave a loud neigh, to which his companion neighed back. "Okay then. Glad that's all settled."
To make matters worse, Cas had put a ban on pie eating until tomorrow. Dean shook his head. "Cas! Living room. Now."
Castiel was already sitting down on one of the couches by the time Dean had closed the lake house door forcefully. Dean stalked to Cas folded his arms in front of him and narrowed his eyes. "Okay, I was patient the entire day today with you being sketchy and shifty with destroying my kitchen—"
"It's industrial sized, Dean, in Heaven. It wasn't going to stay destroyed," Cas protested.
"—and then giving away pie to Gabriel, but seriously stealing a horse from two archangels?" Cas was looking up at him defiantly by the time Dean finished enumerating the things that had gone wrong today. "Why do they even have horses? They have wings."
"Why do you have a car, Dean? You have feet," Castiel mimicked. Dean leaned forward and gave Casthe stare patented for use when the angel was being finicky, unreasonable, and wouldn't be reached by mere words. "The horses are constructs of the fourth heaven, they make travelling the spheres easier and put less strain on our wings. They're not really horses but your mind perceives it that way."
"Okay, so yeah, that's the least of my questions. What has gotten into you, man?"
"There's no demon inside me," Cas reassured Dean. The human followed with another stare to which Cas replied, "oh, you meant—uh, well. Tomorrow's Mikulmas, and it's the first Mikulmas we're celebrating with all the archangels present in years."
"Is Mikulmas even a word?" Dean had never heard of a Mikulmas, ever. Dean got a pointed return stare from Castiel, so he straightened and dropped back towards the couch beside the angel. "Mikulmas might explain the baking, but it doesn't explain Black Beauty and Tornado over there."
Cas' eyebrows furrowed further. "Raphael's horse is named Aesculapius and though he may look black, he's actually bluish roan?"
"You're not going to trick me into talking about something else, again." Dean laid his head back on the sofa and closed his eyes, maybe if he closed them, the headache this entire night had induced will go away.
"No one's tricking you, Dean. It's tradition that we 'steal' horses on the eve of Mikulmas," Castiel explained using those air quotes to emphasize his point, previous defiance gone. "Sorry, I was just a bit excited for the feast day and I really sort of wanted it to be a surprise. Do you want to go to Mikulmas with me?"
"Dude, are you asking me to the prom?" Dean asked opening one eye to look at Cas. Castiel brought a hand at the back of his head and looked at Dean sheepishly. An angelic prom equivalent, really? "Sure, why not? I'm not wearing a suit though."
"No suit-wearing, I promise." Cas beamed. He then took out a small bag from his pocket and showed the contents to Dean. "Do you want to crack some nuts?"
It was to Dean's credit that he didn't give in to his instincts and crack a lewd joke over that.
oOo
When Cas said that there was no suit wearing, Dean had not expected that he'd feel woefully underdressed in flannel and jeans. Cas was dressed in his usual attire, but he had exchanged the trench coat for a sky blue cloak gilded with Enochian script. Dean stepped up to Cas and fixed the angel's tie. Because seriously, Cas shouldn't wear something that flashy and have an unkempt tie.
When they got out of the lake, both Aesculapius and Sleipnir were already running full speeds around the perimeter and Dean eyed them wearily. "How are we going to get on that?"
Castiel let out a strong whistle to which both horses acknowledged and began turning back towards them. It sent Dean into temporary panic because now, instead of running full speeds around the lake, they were running towards them. Dean would have sworn his heart stopped when Sleipnir chose to stop in front of him by rearing, then folding the knees again for a swift mount. "Heya, girl, we going for a ride?"
The horse snorted, to which Castiel informed him, "Sleipnir wishes me to tell you that he is a stallion and not a mare, unlike his sister."
A horse that identified its gender when their weird ass owners don't really identify gender pronouns at all. Huh. "So where—" He'd been interrupted by the swift shift of realities after he'd mounted and finished his sentence, "—to?" in what Dean had already identified was the path towards the Cage.
Unusual was the fact that there were literally thousands of angels on the road, dressed similarly as Castiel—if not as grandiosely, with a white cloak fastened atop their usual pinstripe. Some of them were walking carrying what look like ancient sunshades, some were carrying things wrapped up in silk above their heads, others had very long sticks made out of what looked like ivory. There were angels that were actually flying—the first time Dean had seen an angel in flight—and they were playing songs and … what looked like dancing, twirling around, somersaulting, and flaring visible wings in the air.
Beside Dean, Gabriel popped in suddenly, riding his own horse without a saddle letting the golden horse do all the steering. "Aww, heya, Sleipnir. Choosing a Winchester to ride you?" The grey horse nickered in greeting of its master as the archangel cooed.
"A golden horse while wearing a golden cloak, really?" Dean asked as he eyed Gabriel who to him, looked like he was going to be unseated by paying attention to Dean's ride.
Gabe righted himself before patting his own horse on the neck. "She's a palomino actually, but the natural metallic sheen of her coat is really, really nice. Michael does choose his rides with style."
Well, at least it seems like Castiel was correct in his assumption that they weren't going to get smote anytime soon. When he turned to look for the angel, Castiel was engaged in his own conversation with Raphael. The archangel had materialized astride Cas and was atop a silver buckskin horse donning a bright green cloak of her own. Turning back to Gabriel, Dean asked, "So what's this Mikulmas all about?"
"That's just like Cassie to forget to explain to you in small words."
Dean rolled his eyes and was about to retort when he noticed the Impala driving along slowly by the lane with all the angels flanking it being driven by— "Sammy! What are you doing with baby?"
Before Dean could try to figure out how to steer the horse towards his car, something that the horse seemed completely unwilling to do, Cas had snagged him by his coat sleeve and tugged. It would have completely landed him on his butt if Sleipnir wasn't a brilliant, brilliant horse and had accommodated by shifting closer to Cas.
"Dean, by the same virtue of Gabriel not smiting you, please don't unleash holy wrath upon Sam," Castiel reminded him, not letting go of the sleeve and nodding towards an amused Gabriel.
And that entire sentence means that: Sam knew all along what this entire thing was about! Sam had known and didn't warn Dean. Where was the brotherly concern? Any further realizations at this point was delayed by them approaching the Cage, its electric blue light already up and surrounding it, making the star inside the bars flare out.
With a nudge to his horse, and the angels in front of him clearing a path, Gabriel started his horse on a trot then full on ran, until finally using speeds that Dean's human eyes couldn't track, disappeared from sight. The blond archangel reappeared in front of the Cage, his cloak flaring along dramatically with the sudden visible white golden-tipped six paired wings. He snapped and one of his primary feathers appeared in his hands. "MICMA ESIASCH! NOASMI OL ETHARZI! FARZM G-MACALZA."
Gabriel didn't shout but he was heard across the plains and the song that had been playing mellowed out and stopped. The feather elongated and solidified into a long pole where at the top a golden glove was hung, hoisted up. "He's always for bells and whistles, isn't he?" Raphael murmured.
There was thunder before the silhouette of Michael appeared then solidified into Adam's form wings in the deep green of topaz glowing underneath the bar's lights. Instead of a cloak he was dressed for battle in a coat of mail. The only concession to the celebration a crown of gold and silver, which looked like it had the rays of the sun shining through at certain angles. "Welcome, brothers. I am blessed for I have not been in your presence since the Second Fall."
As one the angels knelt in obeisance, those in the air, dipping their heads and flattening their wings to a glide until they touched on ground and could put fists to their hearts. Even the horses bowed their heads low in the ground.
A sound of clapping broke the united front and Dean noted Castiel's grimace as Lucifer, decked in the most casual attire of all the angels gathered, appeared behind Michael. "So this is what you do right after kicking me out the Gates? I swear it beats cursing blackberries every year during the autumn equinox."
Michael stepped back from the bars, without an archangels grace so close to their prison's bars, the lights holding them in didn't flare as much and those gathered could actually see inside the Cage more fully. "It's a feast for all angels, Lucifer, either take a seat and enjoy being force fed merriment or leave and enjoy hearing the sounds of happiness while we battle."
Lucifer tapped his finger against his lip pondering the quandary before spreading his arms wide, in so doing, created a chaise for him to sit on while Michael had a utilitarian chair with a long table decked for food. "Carry on then, you know I'd hate to be the blight of a party."
Raphael was having trouble controlling her stallion until finally she snapped and threatened, "I'm going to banish you to Zebhul without seeing Lucifer if you make this so unmanageable."
Dean blinked at the fact that apparently Lucifer's own horse was attending the ceremonies, then looked at Cas, who was already reaching for Sleipnir and motioning for him to move towards the long table near the Cage, which Dean had just noticed. "Cas, that looks like the VIP table."
Raphael who finally had Lucifer's horse under control caught up with them, cast a condescending eye on Dean and said, "Castiel, you still haven't told the Michael Sword that he's here because it's Mikulmas?"
"I still have no idea what that means, who the hell is Mikul anyway?"
Castiel's brow furrowed as Raphael shook his head and rode on ahead. "Mikul—Dean, it's Michael. Mikul is its phonetics but it's actually Michael-mas. Michael's Mass. Sort of Like Christmas."
"You're shitting me."
Castiel paused, evaluated, then answered, "No, Dean. I assure you, I still do not defecate despite the vessel."
oOo
"Brother," Michael acknowledged as Raphael neared the bars.
"Brother," Raphael echoed, bringing forth a golden vessel, which was traditionally passed per season to the next archangel commanding the leading regiment. During autumn, Michael always lead the Host. Michael accepted the responsibility despite being imprisoned and took weight off Raphael.
Just to be contrary Lucifer gave a shit-eating grin, leaned back on his chaise and repeated the word, "Brother."
A barely controlled laugh escaped Gabriel. "Brother. Now that we've accomplished that we're one big echo, how's it been in the Cage?"
Lucifer's eyes flared deep blue in irritation, similar to a demon flashing their eyes black, it was a power play and Lucifer trying to assert his dominance over Gabriel. "Nope, I'm not going down that rabbit hole with you, brother," Gabriel said cheerfully, secure in the fact that he was beyond his brother's reach.
"So you managed to make a construct to make me believe I've killed you? Well done, Gabriel." Lucifer slow clapped, eyes trained on the golden haired archangel. "I'll remind myself of it the next time I'm out of the Cage."
Gabriel and Raphael had decided before visiting that they were not going to be talking about the archangel reincarnations nor the entire Pillar of the Earth business. Until Michael and Lucifer both tasted death, which currently seemed impossible inside the Cage, then Raphael and Gabriel were content not to start another round of Apocalyptic prophesies.
"We haven't had a complete Michaelmas in centuries," Raphael pointed out motioning to the angels who were already mingling with the souls that had been invited for the ceremonies as well as the other angels who were present. "Not since the fracturing of the World Tree that created the circles of Heaven."
The fracturing of the Tree of Life had been the time when their father had constructed the Cage and thrown a newly defeated Lucifer in it. A few years—give or take a few thousand— later, Gabriel had gone on his sojourn.
"I'm not missing out much then, where's the sex, the women, the virgin sacrifices?" Lucifer asked as he peered out towards the angels congregating. With the manner of parties Hell threw, Gabriel was sure that this was bound to be mild in comparison.
"You are tolerated here Lightbringer, not welcomed," Raphael said coldly.
Before Lucifer could retort, Michael thundered, "Enough. Either you get along with each other today, on the day where all angels are revered, or not partake in the merriment."
Lucifer snorted before standing up and walking towards the Cage's bars eyeing Raphael. Lucifer stopped when he was abreast of Michael hand snaking around their eldest's waist. "Dear sweet Raphael, you've forgotten, he's protective of all of us."
Michael wore what amounted to an exasperated look. Gabriel had to give it to Lucifer, he did have the rights of it. Michael might be an overbearing control freak, but he did try to only have what's the best for the Host in mind. All of them. Lucifer included.
Raphael signaled with one hand and at this, the silver buckskin approached. The horse bowed, showing the stark white irregular star marking her forehead that resembled a comet. She then gave a whinny in greeting. If she could have put her head through the bars she would have. Lucifer let go of Michael and approached the horse with small wonder, he hadn't seen the construct since his Fall. "Aurora," Lucifer acknowledged letting the horse sniff his hand.
Castiel, finally breaking through the crowd approached, fist to heart in salute like the good soldier he was, before Michael nodded in his direction. "May we start?"
Again Michael nodded and Gabriel noticed that there was a long dinner table set near the Cage's platform for five. He grinned. "Food. I missed human food!"
"Honestly Gabriel, I do not know how you got past the taste of molecules," Castiel whispered.
Gabriel slapped Castiel's back. "Go for the simple foods, Cassie. If it's all the same molecule, they taste less complex. Besides, you enjoyed hamburgers."
"My vessel enjoyed hamburgers," Castiel corrected as he accompanied them to their seats before he left, presumably to fetch the brothers Winchester.
oOo
Dean was seated between Castiel and Sam, who had finally parked the Impala near the four horses who were nickering at each other in welcome. Castiel in turn was seated beside Gabriel and Raphael whotook the last seat on the end, so as he was farthest from Lucifer's vessel.
"I don't get it, why did you have to be all secretive," Dean mumbled between bites of what he'd been informed was Michaelmas Pie. He'd been ignoring all other food, although noted that Gabriel had surrounded himself with Struan Micheil, which from what Dean could see was a large scone-like cake.
Sam on his end was having portions of goose and carrots. Which, yuck. Sam nudged Dean and shoved a piece of paper at him. On it was a hastily scribbled, Cas wanted to surprise you. Yeah, he already got that part. He didn't understand why Cas needed to be secretive at all.
Dean shook his head, silly angel, all he did was drive him completely nuts by trying to second-guess what he was going to do next. Though angels didn't really eat, the head table each took some portions of the food, with Lucifer hanging quietly in the background.
One of the angels gave all the angels on the head table daisies. Something that confounded Dean until Cas, noticing that the humans at the table didn't receive flowers chose a large red daisy and handed it over to Dean. "The Michaelmas daisy is the last blooming flower during the time when most of the gardens are coming to their winter sleep. It's a symbol of fighting the darkness."
Dean reddened. The last time he'd been given flowers was when he graduated middle school, and that had been by Sammy. Dudes did not get flowers. Gabriel interrupted with, "Aww, Dean-o, don't you know what they do with Jenny Daisies?" He chose one flower of his own then proceeded to pluck petals one by one. "She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me…"
Dean covered his eyes with his hands. "Oh my god! Are we in grade school?"
Cas chose to ignore Gabriel, while Sam chuckled and took pity on Dean. "Okay, so get this, Michaelmas is like this big holiday back in Medieval Europe, it was when they harvested stuff, hired, elected, decided if they could afford to feed animals or kill them for winter, stuff like that. Initially it was just held in honor of Michael, hence the term."
"But since he is chief of all angels, it became a feast for all angels," Castiel interjected.
"Oh, now you're talking," Dean said shaking his head, before he could say anything more on the matter he was interrupted by biting something hard on the pie. He spat it out on a piece of napkin looking at what looked like an iron ring, "Dude, what did you put in this pie? I thought I supervised you the entire time! I almost broke my tooth."
"I may not know a lot about cooking, but I do know well enough not to drop things inside a meal," Castiel protested peering over the napkin waiting until Dean examined what it had been.
"It's a weird ass ring," Dean proclaimed.
Sam almost choked on his mead. Gabriel laughed and Raphael snorted. Castiel gave out a small, "Oh."
"What do you mean, oh?" Dean asked suspiciously. "Oh, that's where my ring went? 'Cuz then—eww."
"No, I meant: Oh, Gabriel must have put it," Cas explained earnestly.
Dean leaned back to give Gabriel a glare, Gabriel gave him a salute using his goblet of wine before Dean shook his head and dropped the ring back on the napkin. "Haven't you killed me enough times already?"
It was Cas' turn to give Dean an irritated huff. "It's been more than a thousand years already, Dean. Really, you hold a grudge."
"You try being killed more than a hundred times by the douche and come back with the give the other cheek attitude," Dean muttered. Because there was no forgiving people who killed him, seriously. What if he hadn't been a Winchester and resurrection was never the norm? Where was live and let live in the Winchester Codex?
Castiel sighed. "It's an olive branch, Dean. Gabriel was probably trying to bless you."
"A ring found in a Michaelmas pie means that you're probably marrying soon," Sam offered with a cheeky grin that meant he knew something Dean didn't.
Marriage? Soon? In Heaven? With whom? Dean seriously didn't know what they were talking about. "You're one to talk, I still haven't forgotten that you didn't warn me about this either, Sammy."
Gabriel groaned. "Cassie, that boy you have there is the densest block of wood I've ever encountered in more than a millennia."
From inside the Cage, Lucifer offered his laughter and agreement. Dean settled for flipping them all off.
oOo
Party over, horses and more importantly baby, safely returned to the garage, Dean threw off his extra layer of coat onto the sofa and watched as Cas carefully folded what he'd called a mulâ'a.
"Next time, warn a guy, would you?" Dean asked as he stretched crick on his back from all the sitting and just watching myriads and myriads of angels and their equivalent of a feast day.
Castiel stood at one side looking unsure. "I'm sorry, Dean, I honestly thought you would have enjoyed it better as a surprise and I didn't mean for it to be stressful and—"
"Hey, hey," Dean cut him off before Cas went on a litany of apologies. "It doesn't matter. I had fun, just try not to surprise me the next time okay, I can only handle one surprise per lifetime."
"All right," Cas agreed, running a hand through his hair. Dean frowned and took Cas' hand looking at the glittering thing that had caught his eye. There sitting on his left hand was an iron wrought ring identical to the one he spat out during the merry making.
"You said you didn't drop your ring in the pie!"
Castiel snatched his hand back. "I didn't! Gabriel gave it to me." Now Dean was confused. He thought he was the only one that got a ring and was lucky. "They're twin rings."
"So you're getting married soon too?"
oOo
Back at his abode, Gabriel thumped his head against Sleipnir's flanks cutting his connection to Castiel. "Oh my fucking—" The last time he'd blasphemed that strongly was when he fathered Fenrir, Jörmungandr and Hel.
"I don't understand your fascination with that nephilim-rising story waiting to happen," Raphael pointed out while she nuzzled Aesculapius' neck and gave her a carrot.
Gabriel let out a strangled groan. There was something very wrong with those two if Raphael was noticing all the UST and they weren't. Gabriel waved Raphael away. Seriously, there was no helping those two idiots at all.
Notes:
... and then as my beta said: Dean and Cas got married and since they're in Heaven everything is possible so they had lots of kids and died happily ever after. XD
I usually don't write such tooth rotting fluff... but I couldn't help myself.
This came about in a procrastination bind when I needed to study for my residency training exam. If I fail at my specialty boards, I can blame myself and my overactive imagination. (My board exam is fuelling two more fics, one of which is happening BECAUSE I was studying.)
Plus I've really wanted to write a archangel brotherly story! Argh this is still not it, but well... gosh darn it.
I am not Irish, British nor Scottish, the places where Michaelmas is still celebrated and was heavily celebrated back in the Middle Ages. I just remembered while researching sometime ago that Christmas had an equivalent which is called Michaelmas, all the 'facts' that are here are because of heavy research. It is traditionally celebrated September 29, waay before my big bang posting date and so very far from the finish date of this fic.
I think blackberries are not supposed to be picked after September 29, but they can be eaten beyond that date, but uh I didn't want to drag Dean around picking blackberries.
The Enochian in this, as always was translated by the Handy Enochian dictionary, and let me tell you it's difficult to get phrasing of that thing right. I don't think Enochian was meant for a speaking language at all.
Enochian in the fic:
MICMA ESIASCH!
Behold brother!
NOASMI OL ETHARZI!
Be (man) at peace!
FARZM G-MACALZA.
You lifted up in the presence of the lord.
Or actually what I meant was:
For we lift you up in the presence of the lord.
Lord meaning Michael. I was going for prince, but there is no prince in Enochian.
Disclaimer: Supernatural is property of WarnerBrothers and the CW, and is the brainchild of Erik Kripke. All use of the characters and their lines from the series is unauthorized. I am merely giving them a bit of fun and now are promptly returned. Thank you.