I finally pieced together why I screwed my mental layout of Bobby's house out. When I originally started this I'd been watching season seven and the cabin kind of merged itself with his house in some weird twisted abomination.
Anyways. Time for some insight on Sam's mindset. I really hope I got it across right. It was really difficult to do.
Sam stood on the patio of Singer Salvage. He had only slept two hours at the most.
Yet he had slept. Angels did not sleep. Then again... he had not been an angel for thousands of years. What he had told Gabriel was far from the truth. That was the kind of burden he would never put on any of them. Lucifer had been relentless, ripped him apart and broken through his Grace over and over again. Ripped him apart to his very core. Half a million years of isolation from his brothers and sisters. Half a million years trapped in the darkest point of Hell as Lucifer's personal torture project.
Sam was no longer an angel. The moment Sam had run that blade through Lilith, Sam had become something else entirely with the wings of an angel. While Dean had possessed the best of intentions when he had been forced to remove his wings, it had taken the one final thing that made Sam, Samuel. Dean had destroyed the last thing that made Sam an angel. Sam couldn't be an angel if he had no wings. The information burned in him, deep at his core.
If he shut his eyes, he could feel phantom limbs, a memory. It burned and ached and left him longing to collapse to the ground and scream to their Father. To plead to Him to fix him.
Gabriel held the best of intentions, keeping his distance, stepping around him as though he may break. It was a fair fear. It was also very inaccurate. Sam was shattered beyond repair. The pain reverberated through his damaged Grace, screamed out if he didn't keep the Grace in the core of his Vessel. There was never a time he had needed his Soul more than he needed it now. That was the reason he had to stay away.
If he could, Sam would spread his wings. Sam would flee.
Agony ripped across his Grace as something reached. A voice broke through the lethal silence of being without Heaven. A silence that might have tormented him if it hadn't been half a million years.
'Samuel, I will find you again. I will find you and that Vessel both. I will rip him apart just as I did your Vessel. Only it will be so much slower. I will destroy that Soul of yours. For every day that you are gone, I will take a hundred years longer. Do not make this complicated, Samuel. Either give both you and your Soul up or I begin my descent on my True Vessel. Make your choice and make it soon.'
Grace like ice. Colder than his own could ever achieve but still cold. So very cold. It once had been agonizing to be in the direct contact. Now though? Now it was a reminder. A reminder of why he would never return.
Sam briefly wondered. Had Balthazar told them of what happened to Lucifer's followers? Probably not. Perhaps it was easier that way. He would share that information, at some point. At a later date.
'No.' One simple word and a lash of Archangelic fury broke through the connection, sending him falling to his knees with a shriek, his careful hold on his Grace gone and he could feel.
Oh did it hurt. It hurt as nothing else ever could. An angel blade to his Grace was nothing of the cold burning as his Grace was exposed to the world through the skin of his mostly empty Vessel. A coiling burning sensation that ran down the central part of his severely scarred Grace, slamming through it and boiling at the point where his wings had once resided within his Grace. It boiled hotter and hotter, igniting and flaring up and all he could do was sob helplessly from where he was trapped within his Vessel, curling in on himself and begging for mercy. For Lucifer to stop. There was nothing he could do. Not a thing that he could do. No matter the distance, no matter the warding that kept them hidden, Lucifer could still access his Grace, could still harm him.
They said it was their Father that had taken him from Lucifer's grasp? He should have left him there. That had been better. There had been no light at the end of the tunnel. There had been bitter acceptance and desperate pleas for death. Now, though. Now there was hope that he could be fixed. That he could fix things.
"Sammy!" Sam jolted violently, turning and falling backwards down the short stairwell with a sob of relief. It was gone. Lucifer was gone. Something had made her leave. Someone had stopped her. Or it was a single cruel joke and any second it would start again. The pain was still there. Burning. Something he needed to fix. Something he needed to do. Something that could stop it.
Need.
The proximity of his Soul was what he needed to stop the active pain. It was wrong.
"Sammy, look at me." Sam recoiled from the voice, Grace shrinking back into the safe confinement of his Vessel and... soothing. That was right. How had he forgotten? Keeping is buried away was what he needed. What he should do. "Sam."
Finally he blinked his eyes open, staring at worried green eyes that had haunted him unconsciously since the moment he met the god. Eyes that had no right to exist coated under layers and layers of god magic. Except it was his older brother. Fallen less than he was. It was unfair and for a brief moment he found himself wanting to smite the god. If Dean had done it, it wouldn't have been him. If Dean had killed Lilith, he wouldn't have suffered. If Dean wanted to Fall, he should have destroyed his second eldest brother's Soul.
It was envy, he realized. He was envious of his brother's inability to Fall. Envious that Dean could have destroyed Lilith and never Fallen. One of the many facts he knew now. One of the facts that had been burned into his Grace by Lucifer. An Archangel never Fell. Not truly. Their Father had to break an Archangel's wings.
They had all been so wrong.
"Sam." There was a harsh desperation to the word that pulled him from his mind.
"I am here." Sam whispered timidly, feeling phantom limbs try to bow. Try to submit to his superior. Again his Grace recoiled at the bitter reminder of what he had lost.
"You need to talk to me, man. You need to tell me what's going through your head. I can't help if you won't talk."
"No." One word filled with bitter sorrow. If Dean knew the truth of Lucifer's Fall he would blame himself. He may even resent Sam for the death of Lilith. No one could know. Not that truth. Not the one that ate at him like a sickness. A desolate reminder of the biggest mistake ever made by an angel.
Lucifer had been mostly innocent in his actions.
"Sammy, please. If you keep all of this-"
"No." He bit out, this time angry. With limited care he pulled himself from the arms of the god, struggling to keep his Grace securely locked within his Vessel. This was beyond any of them. What he had been through was something they would never learn. Never be able to understand. Lucifer had ripped him apart too many times to count. Had told him everything he had never wanted to know. Had shown him the brutal truth of their Father.
"Fine." What had once been his brother conceded reluctantly, watching him as though he might break something, or maybe that was fear. A sharp jolt rang through his Grace, telling him that it would never be fine. That when his brother learned the truth he would kill him. That he would turn his back on him. "I put some wards in your Vessel. It'll keep Lucifer out."
Of course Dean had. A brief poke of Grace through his Vessel and he found the warding that had been burnt into his ribs. Warding that only Debriel would have had knowledge of. More confirmation that this was real. It also explained it. Why it had stopped. Why Lucifer had stopped. Part of him felt violated. Dean had done it to him without asking, without considering the implications. What if he hadn't been alone? Altering his Vessel's physical form without permission. It was a violation of trust. Of Faith.
Except he was alone and Jared was thousands of years dead. Had this Vessel still been functional when he had been pulled out, or had their Father rebuilt it for him and shoved him inside?
Fuck God.
Sam recoiled slightly at the thought. It wasn't him. Those words weren't his. They couldn't be. Sam didn't think like that.
Or maybe he did. It had been so long... he wasn't Samuel. Couldn't be Samuel.
"You didn't ask." Sam told his brother bluntly as he pushed up, careful of the gravity. Of the loss of something he had possessed since his creation.
"What?" Dean stared at him for a moment, Sam waited until finally his older brother understood. "I couldn't ask. You weren't responding."
Sam shut his eyes and stretched phantom limbs again, as though they were there. They weren't. They were gone and a wave of sickening realization that there was someone that could fix his wings tumbled through him. Tears burned in his eyes but he didn't let them fall. Didn't let it show. He knew better. Raphael would be no more merciful than Lucifer. Not when Gabriel was his Soul. Not when Gabriel was Michael's Vessel. A flash of resentment at this whole situation coiled through him before he forced it down. No. He would never blame Gabriel for this. This was not their fault.
"It doesn't matter anyway." Dejection clouded the words and Dean gave him a concerned look. "Jared's dead. Destroyed."
Saying it a second time didn't make it better. It made it all worse. A thousand times worse. Sam should have sent the man's Soul to Heaven before meeting with Lilith. Just in case. Instead he hadn't and a completely innocent man had paid the price. The only thing worse than death was nonexistence. Something that Lucifer had ground into him over and over again.
"There's nothing you could've done." Dean tried to put sympathy in the words. It rang false. No one could understand. No one could ever understand. Not then. Not ever. No one except perhaps Lucifer herself. The information hit him like a shockwave. That was not something he should be thinking. That was a very bad thought process.
"I need away from here. I need... somewhere. Please, Dean." The god opened his mouth before quickly shutting it.
"If I try using Pagan Airlines we'll probably get stranded in Antarctica." Sam tried not to let show how much that comparison hurt. Too much cold. Too much time in cold. Dean tried to cover, quickly following his words with something. Anything to break it. How cold was Sam's own Grace? It had to be cold. Lucifer's was frozen. Frozen colder than Hell. The source of the cold in Hell. "Let's get in Baby. We'll drive somewhere. Anywhere."
The next part was a blur. Getting in Dean's car, driving away from there. Away from the numbing energy from his Soul. It was torturous but in a completely different way. It had been thousands of years since he'd seen his Soul before Dean cut his wings off. Sam realized he was detached. The energy was a fact, something that should be there. With him. It didn't mean it had to.
Sam wanted it to. Wanted Gabriel there.
He wished he had his wings. Longed for it. If he had wings, he could take his Soul. He could take Gabriel and run. Anywhere that wasn't there. Anywhere that wasn't the end of the world.
Run and never come back.
"Sam." Dean tried again, with immense amounts of reluctance Sam pulled himself back in the car, looking over at his brother who hadn't looked away from the road since they began the drive two hours previous.
"One question." Sam conceded, hoping that whatever question his brother asked would be simple to answer.
Dean didn't answer at first and they sat in silence for a good half an hour before Dean spoke again, the question careful. "What exactly did Lucifer do to your Grace?" The care didn't make it better. It sent memories flying to the forefront of his mind, nearly ripped his Grace from its careful confinement. A shudder ripped across him as he looked back out the window, staring out across the landscape of South Dakota.
A single question, he'd told his brother a single question. The answer to that question? That was the true challenge. How did Sam begin to explain it? How could he ever hope to explain something like that? Simple answer. "Lucifer ripped me apart. More times than I can count. Ripped me apart and pieced me back together. There was no mercy of death. I didn't have a Vessel anymore. It was just me and her. She used her Grace on me, the pure raw beautiful Grace of Heaven's brightest, she used it and she shredded me to pieces. Over and over again." Sam's eyes were burning again but he didn't stop, continued on because this was what Dean had asked. "When she first brought me there, she carved warding into my Grace, into the core of my Grace, cut in sigils that blocked me from The Host. Carved in markings that would keep me from receiving prayers. I burnt through some of them. She would put them back the moment it happened, though. The longer I was with her, the colder my Grace began to burn. I want to say that it was her, that she was tainting me. The truth is, the longer I was there-"
"How long were you with him?" Dean interrupted and Sam nearly told him the truth. Nearly told him that it was half a million years. Nearly told him that he was forced to endure time as their sister had experienced it.
Except he couldn't. Not then, not ever. No one could know. No one could know what had truly happened. It was a risk he couldn't take. "A thousand years." Sam answered grimly, shifting slightly in his seat and putting his head back out the window, feeling the air sweep across his Vessel. His body.
"I'm sorry, Samuel." His brother whispered low enough that Sam almost didn't hear it. Almost. Sam understood the reason Dean had used the name. In hopes of consoling him. It had the opposite effect, making his Grace prickle with unnecessary anger.
"Samuel is dead, Dean. Just as Debriel is dead, Samuel is dead." Sam's eyes shut and he sighed tiredly, allowing himself to feel. Feel the wind. It was nothing like what he wished for. What he wished for was freedom. An escape. The ability to spread wings and fly. Anywhere. Nowhere at all. Not being trapped in the confinement of a mortal vehicle. Phantom wings spread in aggression and he fought down the anger, eyes burning again.
"Alright." One word then a few seconds later music was coming from the radio, Sam lost himself in lyrics that seemed to be telling the story of a journey of someone traveling mixed with reference of reading, perhaps? It was a strange assortment of words but it drew him in, distracting him from his problems. That song turned over and soon Sam had Dean explaining music as well as switching a strange square object for another. It was obviously something that his brother was far more comfortable with because he dove into the conversation easily and Sam had to smile to himself, if he couldn't be content, at least his brother could.
"This, little brother, is one of the many great things you've missed during your isolation in Heaven."
.-~*~-.
Mount Rushmore. It was magnificent in person. Sam had seen it once before, in a Heaven, not long after its construction. That had been Heaven. An eternal memory. Something that never changed.
There was still a major question as to why they were there. Dean had stopped and told him to get out without an explanation as to why. Then they'd begun walking. It'd taken a long while but they'd walked to the bottom of the far left head.
"When I first left Heaven, I locked my Grace down completely. I hid myself away from everything and everyone. I had to lock my wings away as well. I couldn't risk them being exposed." Dean paused, throwing a sidelong glance at his younger brother before putting a hand on his shoulder. "I would go to mountain ranges or other locations and do this. Hopefully... " His brother paused in his words and the ground shifted from beneath them.
Sam whipped around and froze as the wind hit him, that was the first thing that he noticed. The wind. It was glorious. The feeling of it whipping across his Vessel, as though it might send him away. Not that it could. Sam felt a bit of an offset in nature here and though it was mostly gone there was the reminiscent power of a different god. Sam didn't let that bother him. It was amazing and glorious and for the first time since he'd been brought back, he felt... joy. True joy. As he looked out over the landscape his breathing caught, it was beautiful, if not marred. Their Father's creation. The Earth. Spread out across his sight. Shutting his eyes he returned to the feeling of the air. Wind. Phantom limbs spread again and it was as though he could fly again. Would fly again. A step forward, into the wind. They were there. They couldn't be gone. It wasn't possible for them to be gone. If he...
"Sammy!" Dean's startled voice shouted as something grabbed him around the torso, pulling him backwards and sending the both of them falling backwards. Falling. No.
Sam jerked against the god's hold as his Grace escaped its confinement, flying to the edge of his Vessel and-
Burning. Freezing. Pain. A startled shout came from beneath him as he rolled off the god, tears burning his eyes again. No. Would not cry. Not here. Not now.
Why had Dean stopped him? So close. He could've flown again. His wings couldn't be gone.
A hand wrapped around his shoulder and pinned him to the ground, words flowing through the air that he couldn't hear. Sam could feel, though. Feel his Grace harming that hand. His Grace fighting off whatever had thought itself rightful to touch him. Could feel how shredded and destroyed his Grace was. It burned. It hurt. Everything hurt. There was something important. Something he was forgetting. Oh, but the agony. The pain. It was getting more and more difficult to think around the pain.
"Luc-"
A hand clamped down over his Vessel's mouth.
"Don't you dare say his name, Sammy. Focus."
Dean. His mind rationalized somewhere and suddenly he remembered. Remembered everything. In a moment he locked his Grace down and understood.
"No." He moaned out weakly, shoving against his brother. This had been a bad idea. Such a very bad idea.
"I'm sorry, Sammy. I thought this would be good for you. Fuck." Sam watched as Dean rose to his feet, staring at the burns crossing the skin of his brother. If Sam's Grace hadn't been so diminished... it would've destroyed Dean.
So broken.
Nearly killed his brother. All because he'd thought he could fly. All because his wings were gone.
Lucifer.
Sam understood now why Dean had stopped them. They might've been warded, prayers weren't. If he'd mistakenly prayed to Lucifer...
Can't let him harm Dean. My mistake.
"Leave." He muttered weakly, unsure completely of whether he was telling Dean to leave or telling him they needed to leave.
.-~*~-.
Gabriel woke up to find he was chained in the bedroom again. Was Dean serious? Did he honestly believe that Gabriel would say yes now?
"Good morning, Gabe." His brother greeted from the chair at the corner of the room and Gabriel yelped, falling back off the mattress.
"Damn it, Cas!" He shouted angrily as he struggled upright, his brother didn't bother trying to help him. In fact, Gabriel was certain his brother was laughing at him. Once he was up on his feet and certain he didn't have any injuries he glared menacingly across the room at his brother who just smiled back innocently. Fucker. "What are you doing stalking me while I sleep?" He asked with heavy annoyance, settling back into the bed and grabbing the cuff, glaring at it as though hostility alone would make it disappear.
"I am not stalking you. I just enjoy this chair." Gabriel shot him a disbelieving look and Cas surrendered, setting the book to the side. Something seemed... off in his behavior. "You told us you would not say 'yes' until after Sam was back. I trusted that you still had no intents of saying yes but Dean seemed less inclined to believe in you." Gabriel groaned and leaned back. Of course that would come back to bite him in the ass.
"Well do you mind getting your ex to free me? You might've been into some kinky-"
"Him and Sam left earlier." Cas interrupted blandly before he could finish that joke.
Sam had left? Gabriel knew he'd bailed on their dream trips and left him to try to control his own dreams but it'd been without an explanation. Though it shouldn't have really surprised him, it did. Where had him and Dean gone?
"It was without an explanation. I am sorry, Gabriel." There was no reason for his brother to be sorry. If Sam was with Dean, he was safe. At least he had to be.
"So I'm stuck here until they get back?" Gabriel sighed in exasperation, watching his brother as he stood.
"No. Balthazar will free you once we have talked."
"Alright, well talk, baby bro." Gabriel was itching to get out of the god-forsaken bedroom that had been turned into his prison.
For this Cas looked slightly uncomfortable, though... it was off. Before he spoke, he looked towards the door, "I had a dream."
"Okaaaay?" Gabriel drawled, waiting for the punch line.
"I saw a city slaughtered at the hands of him. Of Lucifer." The way Cas said it... it wasn't mournful. It wasn't anything. It was stated like a fact and something about that made it worse. Cas had told him and he'd enjoyed killing those kids in River Pass but the information had bypassed him. Had unconsciously floated away and been buried under his 'Shit I don't want to deal with' list and left to rot.
Now, though. Now he was concerned. Cas had never been the most empathetic person, but he'd cared. Watching his brother now made his stomach twist slightly in a knot. There was no empathy. No care. Maybe Gabriel shouldn't have been the one that was locked up because fuck.
'Balthazar, if there's ever been a time for you to give a shit. Now's it. Either your blind or stupid. Something's seriously wrong with my brother.'
Gabriel shifted slightly on the bed, "That really sucks. So it was Lucifer?" It was horrible, but he was testing something. Cas would've known. Would've seen it the moment Gabriel had no strong reaction.
"I saw it through his eyes." His younger brother shut his eyes, completely passive. A chill slid down his spine. There was something seriously fucked up here.
"What did he do to them?" Gabriel asked carefully, watching as his younger brother's eyes flicked open, something twisted in his expression and he was suddenly mournful. It wasn't genuine. Gabriel could see that. Gabriel knew his brother better than that, wouldn't fall for something so obviously fake.
Fake-Cas met his eyes and dropped the façade, "You're not as big of an imbecile as I thought you'd be. Then again, I shouldn't be too surprised... "
"I'm not awake." Gabriel realized and backed up slightly, watching...
"No you are not." Not-Cas agreed, waiting impatiently. Then it clicked and Gabriel understood.
"Michael." Not-Cas nodded, smirking at him. "I'm not saying yes."
"I know. Thank our absent Father you're too much of a stubborn dick to say 'yes'. I don't want your ass. I don't want anything from you other than a solid 'no'."
"Then why the hell are you here?" Gabriel demanded and the archangel's expression hardened.
"Because your little stupid angel let Lucifer free!" Michael snapped angrily, an accent that Gabriel was suddenly too concerned about his life to care about slipped through the words. The air around them suddenly crackled to life with energy before a wind tore through the room as the windows shattered under the force and Gabriel was flying across the room. The only thing that kept him from slamming into the wall was his control over dreams. Instead he landed gracefully on his feet, quickly stumbling backwards against the angry winds, Michael was watching him with violent urges. "As much as I love my Father, I'm not going to kill my brother for Him. Especially after what you morons did to him."
"Why are you here, Michael?" Gabriel asked, standing taller and earning a cruel smile from the Archangel.
"I want you and that angel of yours to turn yourself over to the righteous anger of Lucifer. Of course I know you won't do it. You'd rather take my little brother and run." Sympathy flashed across his expression. "If you run. Don't go back."
"Why did you leave Heaven?" Gabriel changed tactics, Michael obviously didn't want his brother dead. Maybe they could push him-
"I found my Soul and I never let go. I've Fallen further than any of my brothers ever dreamed possible, Gabriel Novak. Take my brother and run. Get the hell out of there before Lucifer finds you and tears you apart completely in all the fun ways." Michael paused, considering him for a moment as the wind died down. "I suggest you use that undersized brain of yours to consider everything I've told you." The air behind him rippled to life, much as Sam's had when he'd first begun visiting Gabriel's dreams and Michael smiled darkly at him. "I won't take your 'yes' and I won't go back to Heaven. Give Debriel my regards." A flutter of wings and Gabriel was alone in his dreams with a sickening feeling in his gut.
Michael finally made his appearance. Any theories yet? I'm being careful not to give away the punchline of where Michael's at while still trying to keep him in character which is a massive pain.