Sola Fide
by Viridian Magpie
The beatings will continue until morale improves. (Sam/Castiel, Dean/Castiel; hints of Sam/Gabriel)
Warnings: Gabriel is getting a little forceful at one point, but nothing happens.
AN: This story was written for the team_free_love exchange, for jabber_moose . Anyway, this fic goes AU at the end of 5.16: Castiel doesn't leave to drink a liquor store. Dean and Sam take him to a bar - it changes a few things. Many thanks go to kodamasama for beta-ing.
The next morning, Gabriel joins them for breakfast. That is if the definition of 'joining someone for breakfast' includes a sudden change of locale. One moment Sam is rubbing sleep from his eyes and grimacing at the thought of more coconut milk, the next he's sitting in a brightly lit kitchen, a pile of pancakes on the table right before him and smelling delicious. He still can't hear a thing and judging by Dean's flailing on his chair, his brother is still handicapped as well. Castiel's eyes are focused on Gabriel, but that's not really indicative of anything.
There's coffee, though. Sam could cry.
Gabriel's voice is like a Godsend to him. It's the first thing he's heard in days, and, while the general tenor of the words is decidedly unwelcome, the sound itself in Sam's head is the best thing Sam's ever heard.
Sound. Words. Noise.
"If I'd wanted to watch two brothers tearing each other apart, I could have returned home."
The tone is deceptively mild, but the expression on the archangel's face more than makes for it. Sam doesn't think he's ever seen Gabriel so close to killing someone, not for the sake of teaching them a lesson but to let out he feels. And Sam's good at calling up anger when being confronted with the fury of someone else, but no anger comes to him. Instead, his insides are twisting themselves into knots because Gabriel is right, and they've all been idiots.
"I'm sorry," Sam says and is so startled by the sudden return of sound, a clock ticking, a dog barking somewhere, that he almost misses Gabriel's "you should be."
"We should be?" Dean's voice rings out. Loud, way too loud, and stupid as it is Sam clamps his hands over his ears, trying to drown out the noise. This is a bit like being blinded by the light being turned on after his eyes have adjusted to a darkened room, he thinks. His ears need time to get used to noise again.
Gabriel doesn't answer. He lets his gaze sweep over all of them: Cas' carefully neutral face, Dean's furious eyes, Sam himself. Sam drops his eyes and stares determinedly at the pancakes. There is a very long minute of silence that carries with it all the awkwardness silence can ever produce when it is filled with words unspoken and damnably true. From the corner of his eyes, Sam watches Dean watch him, sees the thought cross his brother's mind that maybe Gabriel has a point.
"So, what now?" Dean asks.
"Well, first," Gabriel says, "I'm going to give you back the use of your legs, and brother dearest gets to use those pretty blues to eye-fuck you properly again."
"Dude, we're not-"
"Yet. And don't interrupt me. This is something you'll want to hear, chucklehead."
"Unless it involves a way to stop the Apoc-umph!" Dean's hand flies to his face, pulling at the piece of tape that is suddenly plastered over his mouth. Castiel leans closer to him, two fingers raised and heading for Dean's head. He almost pokes him in the eye, but Dean barely seems to notice as the comes loose.
"As I was saying, first I'll fix you. Then I can send you back right away-"
"Yeah, let's do that."
"-or," Gabriel continues, talking over Dean, "we can get to know each other a little better." Sam is that was supposed to sound dirty.
"Yeah?" Dean asks. "And why would we wanna do that?" He holds up the piece of tape as if to underline his point. It makes a convincing argument.
"It'll make it easier to work together. As it is, you don't like me very much right now." Dean snorts, and Sam can't really stop himself from letting his thoughts on that show on his face. Gabriel's expression, which was pretty flat to begin with, goes utterly wooden. "Kids, if we're gonna pull the plug on Apocalypse, we can't have such an epic bitch fight as you've just had."
Sam replays that in his mind. Yes, Gabriel did just say that he was going to side with them, and that...that sounds to good to be true.
"You're willing to help us kill Lucifer?" Castiel asks, a frown marring his face.
Gabriel shakes his head. Just what Sam thought. Too good to be true. "No, I won't do that." He pauses and clucks his tongue. "There's another way."
"Another way," Sam echoes, just as Dean says, "What? Should we try talking him out of it? Dude, that ain't gonna work."
"I'm aware of that," Gabriel grouses. "But we can shove him back into the Cage."
"The - you mean, it's still there?" Sam asks. It earns him a "well, duh" sort of expression, and yeah, okay. That was a stupid question.
"So, thoughts? Suggestions? Tears of gratitude?" Gabriel asks. His face is a study in indifference as if he couldn't care less what they decided to do. It doesn't jive with what he's been doing to them for the last 48 hours, Sam thinks.
"Okay. Say 're right," Dean begins, "say it's still there. How do we get him to jump back in?"
"Do I have to do all the thinking here? I know it's not your strong suit, but you have to use your brain a little yourself." Gabriel pulls a Twix out of thin air, tearing it open. "So, you in?"
Sam looks towards his brother and holds his gaze for a long moment, sees Castiel nod slightly. It's the best suggestion any of them have heard in weeks. It's the best anyone has come up with since their conversation with Joshua in the Garden. Sam's mind is made up on it, but Dean should make the final call.
"Okay," Dean says at last, pursing his lips. "Let's."
Barely a second after Gabriel snaps his fingers, Dean is on his feet. He stumbles and sways, grabs hold of the table to keep himself upright. Castiel offers him a hand, but Dean brushes him off, walking around the table on his own two shaky legs until he's standing before the archangel.
There is no warning given, no word spoken. Dean just raises his hand and hits the archangel right in the face.
It's a solid punch right to the jaw, enough power put into it that Gabriel falls backwards, chair clattering. Dean dives after him - or like like a sack of potatoes on top of him, elbow first. And there's no way Gabriel didn't see that coming, no way he couldn't just stop it if he wanted to, but he doesn't. They start to tussle, rolling on the floor, and Dean...Dean isn't fighting efficiently, not like someone who wants to finish the job. He's just hitting and cursing and kicking, pouring so much energy into it, transforming him into the brother Sam knew before the shit hit the fan, turning him into Dean. And for the first time ever, Sam thinks, Gabriel's machinations have done more good than harm.
"Glad you think- fuck!"
Sam rescues the coffee pot and his mug before the table gets overturned, then joins Castiel in the corner he'd into once the fight had started. Cas barely pays him any mind, eyes fixed on Dean, who's just bitten Gabriel ear. The angel flips them around again, and snarls. "Do you think you're Mike Tyson, or what?"
Castiel shifts from one leg to the other.
"I'm sure I can distract Gabriel for a while," Sam comments, and Cas nods absently.
"That would be appreciated."
The keep watching until Dean starts trying to throttle the archangel, whose expression is somewhere between annoyed and bored. He snaps his fingers, disappearing from under Dean and reappearing a second later, sitting on the counter and swinging his legs.
Dean glares at him from his position on the floor.
"Feels good to be in control again, doesn't it? It's no fun just being along for the ride, all helpless."
Dean's hand clenches into a fist again and he struggles up into a sitting position. "Just how long have you been following us? Fuck, how did you even find us?"
"That's for me to know and for you to simply believe in my awesomeness."
Castiel frowns. "They're both warded. It's not possible to track either of the Winchesters."
"Good thing I didn't even try to track Dumb and Dumber then. Nice car, by the way. Real classic."
Oh hell, Sam thinks. They've never thought about warding the car.
"Thanks," Dean says, ignoring the implication entirely. He's looking more relaxed now, sitting cross-legged on the floor and smirking at Gabriel. "You're bleeding."
"You're kinky, and I'd totally indulge you, but you stink." Gabriel raises a hand and points towards the door leading deeper into the apartment - house? - place. "Bathroom's that way."
"Fuck you," Dean says, but his lips are quirked.
His brother's called dibs on the shower and was off the moment he managed to get back on his feet, Castiel hot on his heels. Sam's a hundred percent sure he knows where this is going, or where Cas plans to take it, so he's trying to think of a way to snare Gabriel's attention while sitting at the table and nursing his third cup of coffee. The coffee is absolutely heavenly.
"Well, now I know what will make you ."
Sam doesn't say anything because he's searching for a good, neutral conversation topic and pretty much drawing a blank. "Um. Nice place."
Gabriel throws him a withering glance, and it's entirely deserved, too. "Oh please. I know what's on little bro's mind. I'm not going to cock block him, don't worry." He turns a little on the chair he returned to once Dean was gone and puts his feet up on the table. An awkward silence descends, during which Sam stares unhappily at the tennis shoes that barely missed the pot.
"You're an asshole," Sam finally declares because them being idiots or not, there's proportional then there's excessive, and Gabriel tends towards the latter.
"Yup."
"Two days of being deaf," Sam continues. "For what? Because you were angry?" Locking them up together to work out their differences? Okay. And Dean's extra punishment Sam understands, can't have Dean run off to say yes to Michael. But his own? Or Castiel's?
"You really are slow." Gabriel is staring at him incredulously, like Sam's missing the point entirely. And oh, come on. Sam groans. So he chose not to listen once. Once. Because what Dean had to say wasn't worth hearing. And because Sam was angry, alright.
"As much as I hate saying something so cliché, the best way to avoid conflict is communication, Winchester. Which is something the lot of you suck at." Gabriel sighs, lets his feet slip to the floor, and leans forward. "My brother turned a deaf ear to everything we had to say. Every argument, every plea. And look where that got us!" Gabriel slaps a hand down on the table, making the coffee pot rattle and Sam flinch. Everything seems just a little louder than he remembers it to be.
"It was a stupid plan," Sam grumbles.
"Yes, because that was the reason you ran, of course."
They need to stop doing this awkward silence thing, Sam thinks, really, really need to stop it. Though it's probably only awkward for himself. Gabriel looks perfectly at ease, or as much at ease as someone whose family is tearing itself can look.
"What made you change your mind?" He doesn't bother clarifying. At worst, the archangel can just read his mind. If he isn't doing it constantly already.
Gabriel leans back further and stares at the ceiling. "I skipped ahead. Saw how it ended." He shrugs. "How it will end if you both say 'yes.'"
Sam doesn't know why they would. Well, he knows why Dean's considered it, but Sam isn't going to say 'yes' to Lucifer. If, for whatever reason, they both do become vessels, that would mean the end of the world, after all.
Gabriel voice interrupts his thought processes. He's still staring at the ceiling and speaks slowly, quietly. "It won't ever stop. They'll just keep fighting, and they're pretty evenly matched, you know. It will last for so long, and so many more of my brothers will die."
And watching family die, Sam knows, is one of the worst things that can happen. It was bad with Dad, and bad with Dean, and bad with Jess, who was family to him in all but blood. He was going to spend his life with her; well, had planned to. Angels and demons put a stop to that one before he ever really got the chance.
Gabriel's not done, though. "Even if both of you keep saying 'no,' that wouldn't stop it. Lucifer will just use the puppet he has now, and Michael's still got Adam. It's not perfect, but he'll do in a pinch."
"Adam?" Sam thinks his mouth is hanging open. Adam's dead. He couldn't...no, of course, he could.
"That's why we need to lock him up, sooner rather than later."
Well, shit. It never really ends. Sam sighs and takes a sip from his mug. "So, how will we open, or close, the Cage?"
Gabriel stills, and for a second Sam can see the resemblance between him and Castiel in the way he holds himself. Gabriel's perfected looking human, acting human, but he doesn't right now.
"The Rings of the Horsemen. I hope you still have the one you took off War?"
"Yeah," Sam replies. "Famine's too."
Gabriel's eyebrows shoot upwards. "My, weren't you busy little bees."
If Sam were mean - which he is sometimes - he could make a dig about how Gabriel obviously doesn't know everything.
"Kind of pointless since I can hear you."
"Then don't listen in." Sam huffs.
"That would be absolutely no fun. Speaking of fun, what you need right now is a little rest and relaxation. Can't have you imploding."
"I don't want- Gabriel!"
The house is pretty big. It has a swimming pool, a sauna, a pool table, a giant plasma TV, about three billion blu-ray discs, and not a single book. Consequently, Sam spends most of the morning playing with Ripley in the room with the pool table. Ripley, believe it or not, is Gabriel's dog. Dean and Cas have finished what Sam assumes was a joint shower, and Dean is showing Cas how to play.
Gabriel himself keeps drifting between them, talking to Sam one moment, playing pool with Dean the next - up until Dean refuses to play with him. "He cheats," he tells Sam as Sam throws a sheep-shaped doggy toy.
Gabriel widens his eyes and points at himself. "Trickster. What did you expect?"
The whole thing is supposed to be relaxing, Sam knows, and it sort of is, but he can't stop thinking about how little they actually know about the Cage or how they're going to get Lucifer to jump back in because shoving him? Yeah, unlikely to work. Sam watches Gabriel pull on the sheep's tail while Ripley's biting down on the head and shaking the toy. It's a pretty simplistic one, so it takes Sam a moment to realize that this is actually a lamb, not a full-grown sheep.
A god damned lamb.
Sam experiences a moment of clarity, ideas coming together, exploding into his mind to form a picture of what it is he needs to do. The way to end this. And Sam isn't Jesus, far from it, and he can't cleanse himself, can't wash away the sins of the world, but maybe, just maybe, he can save it.
"Lunch time," Gabriel declares suddenly.
"Awesome," Dean says.
The thought doesn't leave him alone the rest of the day, but Sam doesn't bring it up, especially not around Dean. Yet, he sees no other way this could work, and while he lies in bed that night, it weighs heavily upon him. He kind of wishes he weren't alone, but Cas followed Dean into the bedroom, even though there are enough of those and Cas doesn't need to sleep anyway. Of course, Cas didn't exactly have sleeping in mind, anyway. Sam gets definite proof of that when he hears muffled sounds coming from across the hall. It's a relief to know that Dean doesn't feel so dead inside any longer that he isn't even having sex. Sam is happy for both of them, but...
But.
Goddammit, this isn't high school. Him and Cas - that hasn't ever been an epic romance. It's been about comfort, though, and that something he's in need of right now.
"Dean."
Oh, hell. Why are the walls so goddamn thin? Resistance is futile, apparently, and so Sam lets his hand slip inside his boxers.
It doesn't help him find sleep. He's become an insomniac. Freaking fantastic.
"Harder! God, Cas!"
Sam growls and turns till he's lying on his stomach and puts his pillow over his head. It helps with the tuning-out but not with the not-thinking-about-it. What with having his head buried, he misses the opening of the door - or maybe the door wasn't opened, fucking angel powers - but he doesn't miss the snarled "Oh, for Dad's Sake, Winchester."
Sam removes the pillow and looks at Gabriel. "You're naked."
"And you're pathetic. Let's have sex!"
Sam stares at him, lets his gaze drop to the mess his boxers have become, raises his eyes to Gabriel once more.
"Even if I wanted to, I'm-"
Gabriel wriggles his fingers. "Like that's much of a problem."
Sam puts the pillow back over his head and tries not to howl with frustration. "Go away."
"Closing your eyes won't make the problem go away." The bed dips suddenly, and a hand settles on Sam's hip. "The lot of you, I swear. You refuse to take notice of anything. Brother is too entrenched in his woe to see what's going on right in front of his eyes. And-"
"Just. Shut. Up." Sam swings the pillow, hitting Gabriel right in the face. There's a sudden explosion of feathers and linen, and next thing Sam knows, Gabriel's sitting on top of him, hands on Sam's wrists on either side of his head, pressing them down into the mattress. He's leaning in so close that Sam can smell the sugary, sweet air Gabriel is breathing into his face.
"You truly are Lucifer's vessel. You think you can boss an archangel around? Such arrogance!"
And no, Sam knows, this is not about Gabriel at all, and if the damn bastard would just stay out of his head, that would be fucking awesome. "It's the only way. He won't jump into the Cage because we ask him nicely!" He's shouting by the end of that, and it really doesn't come as a surprise when the door flies open and Dean and Cas barge in on them.
Gabriel pays them no mind, and Sam doesn't either, really. Their eyes are fixed on each other, and Sam kind of expects sparks to shoot out of Gabriel's any moment now. "Once he's riding your ass, you can't control him, you idiot!"
"I can," Sam hisses. "I've been controlling the goddamn blood addiction. Resisting something I don't even want can't be that much harder!"
"You-"
"I thought we decided that you're not going to say 'yes,' Sammy."
Sam looks away from Gabriel and sees Dean leaning against the door frame, arms crossed, scowl in place. He's wearing jeans but nothing else. Still, that is more than Cas, standing right next to him, is wearing. That isn't really all that shocking, considering that Castiel just looks confused when Sam tells him to put something on. ("I'm wearing a vessel.") What does stun Sam utterly and completely are Castiel's next words.
"I think this could work," he says. "And I see no alternative. Both Gabriel and I are too diminished to present a-"
"Now just wait a moment!" Gabriel interjects, straightening up and releasing Sam's wrists.
"-challenge," Castiel continues, undaunted. "You know that I'm right, Gabriel." He stalks towards the bed, stops just before he bumps into it, towering over Sam and the archangel. "Was your purpose earlier not to show us that we must have faith in each other? That if there is no faith, things fall apart? You tell us to trust each other, to trust you, and yet you have no faith in us yourself."
Gabriel silently glares up at Castiel.
"Could we get back to the part where Sam isn't playing Satan's meatsuit for all eternity?"
"It wouldn't be forever, Dean," Cas says. He's still staring at Gabriel, and Sam thinks, rather randomly, that Castiel really has a thing for eye-fucking. He's an eye-fuck slut. Once he's thought this, he's surprised when Gabriel doesn't react at all. "It doesn't need to be, that is."
"I do that and Luci's gonna own my ass when - not if, note - this goes wrong."
"Do what?" Sam asks him, but it's Castiel who answers.
"You may have noticed that Dean and I share a profound bond."
"Dude, what?" Dean yelps, finally leaving his post and joining everyone else.
Cas turns towards him, a surprised look on his face. "When I pulled you out of the Fire, I created a link between us, so that even if we were separated while I battled demons, I could easily pull you towards me." He raises a hand, pointing towards Dean's shoulder. "You still bear the evidence, Dean."
"What my brother failed to mention is that it works the other way round, too. And anyone with a bit of skill, who happens to possess one partner of such a bond because they stupidly consented to it, can use that link, too."
"And yet, the one possessed may have an easier time of resisting from help gained through the link."
Sam's starting to wonder if either of the angels even notices that they're not alone. Heck, Sam's wondering if anyone at all knows that he's here because Dean's busy staring at the hand print Cas left on him, poking at it with his index finger.
"We'd be putting all our eggs in one basket," Gabriel growls, but he's beginning to look thoughtful.
"It's a risk worth taking." Castiel's voice is quiet and low and full of confidence. Confidence that this plan will work. That Sam can battle Lucifer for control over his body and win.
Confidence, in other words, in Sam.
He doesn't know if he deserves it.
"This bond thing," Dean speaks up suddenly. "What does it do?"
Gabriel shrugs. "It's sort of like a rubber band between souls. I pull on it, Sam's soul comes flying. Not the body though, so we'll need to reconstruct it. Unless can just stick you into a Ken doll?" He smirks down at Sam. Sam glares at him.
"Didn't think so. Alright," Gabriel says, clapping his hands. "I'll make a link, push some of my Grace into him - which will, hopefully, make it easier for Sammy-boy here to resist Lucifer and allow me to pull his soul out of the Cage before it closes - and then we'll go Ring-hunting. Oh, and I need some blood and flesh from you. A finger will do, but we can do that later."
"A finger," Sam echoes.
"Like a blueprint for your body, yeah. Can't build something from scratch. Nothing permanent, that is." He pauses. "You'll get a totally new body; a couple of days with only nine fingers won't do you no harm."
Well, put like that. "You're a sadist," Sam says.
Creating a link between an angel and a human soul involves both of them being without a body, apparently. (Easier access, as Gabriel put it, and that was definitely meant to sound dirty.)
There's a slight hiccup in the proceedings when Dean demands to be present, and it is only moments before Gabriel sighs and agrees that Sam notices that Dean didn't protest the plan itself all. Sam's about to say something Dean would no doubt term 'chick-flick-y', but then Gabriel snaps his fingers, and suddenly Sam can't see a thing, can't hear a thing, can't feel a thing. Then there's a whoosh, and he feels static riding his skin and hears a strange crackling. Sight returns a moment later; only it isn't sight as he knows it. There is nothing physical here, and yet Sam can see, can see him the giant, multi-colored wings of an angel.
It's breath-taking. (Though Sam, of course, has no breath that can be taken.)
"What's with the rainbow-colored gay-parade?"
"Dean."
"No smart ass comments from the peanut gallery, bucko."
Sam looks past the feathers that are fluttering and shifting as if they were moved by an invisible wind and sees both Cas and Dean...floating behind Gabriel. And that, Sam thinks, is quite strange because a soul...
Actually Sam has no idea what a soul looks like, but he didn't think it looked like its body does, and Dean still looks like Dean, and Cas still looks like Jimmy Novak. With great, gray-shaded wings, though.
"It doesn't," Gabriel grumbles. "Your mind is trying to make sense of something it's not equipped to handle." He lifts and spreads his right wing, pointing. "See this here? 26 colors. One for each dimension angels exist in. Castiel here has - hmm, what is it for you? Gray? - 26 shades of gray." And now that Gabriel has made him aware of it, Sam can see the differently shaded feathers on Castiel's wings. He reaches out even though he's nowhere near close enough to actually reach Cas without drifting closer and is surprised when his hand touches the smooth primaries.
"Distance isn't distance as you know it ," Gabriel says. He puts a hand on Sam's shoulder and steers him away from Cas a little. "Right, hold still."
It's all the warning Sam gets.
Gabriel plunges his hand inside Sam's body - being, soul - and it is the most intrusive, the most intense, the most awesome feeling Sam's ever experienced in his life. He's swept under a wave of certainty, of knowing - knowing everything and finding it beautiful and yet hurting, hurting for so much that is lost - and he can't, he can't deal, he can't can't can't-
Foreign mind holding him up - Cas - then Dean, his brother, keeping him steady, a wall of trust, of faith, at his back, and Sam falls into oblivion.
He hits the ground - his body - like an inexperienced skydiver landing, a rough tumble into his limbs. His breath escapes him in a great whoosh. He opens his eyes to discover that he's still lying on the bed, Gabriel draped over him. He has one hand plastered on Sam's chest, and underneath that, Sam discovers as Gabriel shifts off him, is a perfect imprint of his hand.
It looks like a brand. Hell, it is a brand. Sam touches it carefully, but aside from a little soreness, he doesn't feel a thing. Gabriel lets out a laugh. He makes a short motion with his hand, mimicking pulling on a string, and Sam feels his mind, his self, jump inside his body.
"Shit." It's damn uncomfortable.
"That shit is gonna save you from eternal damnation, bucko. Be grateful."
Sam chooses not to deign that with an answer. He hears the glide of skin on skin and Dean's grumbling, and when he turns his head to the left, he's met with the sight of Dean almost smothering Cas underneath him and Castiel squinting against the light. Morning has broken while they were incorporeal. Sam looks at the first rays of the sun as they brighten the room, watches particles of dust dance in them, their swirling movements.
Sees the sun shining bright in a cloudless sky and feels his lips stretch into a smile.
