Soooo...I forgot that I hadn't finished updating this...in my defense, I finished updating it on AO3!
Having Gabriel around…it's like a godsend, except it's for the King of Hell.
I thought at first that he'd want to go back to Heaven or run around being Loki for a while, but he's stuck around and I can't say how grateful I am for that.
With him taking over the Gatekeeper job—without me even asking him to, he just zapped me asleep after another all-nighter and when I woke up he was working on the defenses and he's been at it ever since—I have time to work on the laws of the realm, mobilize the army, at least try to get Heaven to calm the fuck down we're not doing anything wrong…okay, it's still too much work for one person, but with Gabriel taking care of the military defense side of things and cooing at the younger demons trying to kill each other, I get to sleep.
Sleep is good. Sleep is wonderful, actually. I love sleep.
And after I explained the wings—much neater and grayer now that Lucifer's taint is draining out of Hell, and therefore my powers—and my new status, Gabriel stepped right up, really. I think he thinks it's funny.
Okay, it is a little funny. But only because I make a terrible Antichrist.
He also thinks I'm a little bit stupid to expect my brother to twiddle his thumbs for a month until I can get topside, but if I send a demon up to tell him I'm okay, he'll probably kill it.
Suicide missions are so not my style.
But apparently this is not true of everyone, because I have reports that some idiot has gotten past Gabriel's defenses while he was busy mediating some Lesser Demons and is tearing through Hell.
Well, was tearing through Hell. Gabriel and I have plans in place for situations like this, and we didn't even have to get directly involved once Gabriel's regiment of specially-trained baby demons got wind of the 'invasion,' but now we get to find out who was there and why. My money's on some poor angel who thinks he's scouting out a world of torture and evil.
Heaven always does get the idiots.
Dean knew it wasn't his best plan ever.
Actually, it wasn't even remotely thought out and more likely to get them killed than anything, but it was the best he could do with no idea what Hell was even like or how to get in so that he could be with his brother—at least to share in whatever pain Sammy was going through until the month was over.
Castiel had said that it would probably be more than a month in Hell, since time fluctuated or whatever, and there was no way Dean was going to leave his little brother to rot alone for years or even centuries. This was his only chance to see Sam again even remotely soon, possibly his only chance to see Sam sane and unbroken, and he was going to grab it with both hands.
All the same, sneaking into Hell was probably not the brightest idea, and it had been even harder than they'd expected.
First of all, there had been the trouble of getting there. Not so much a problem, since Castiel was a magical fairy and could just go to Hell whenever, apparently. The jury was still out on whether he was a demon or some weird 'other' creature, though Castiel himself continually insisted that he was an Angel (of the Lord).
After they'd gotten there, they'd had to sneak past the sheer, smooth walls. There were no doors of any kind except for the place where the damned souls got in, which was ironically a river with a ferry.
Castiel, being a magical fairy, had had no problem pretending to be dead. Possibly he was already dead. At first the demon on the ferry had refused to take him, but Castiel had claimed that he had been rejected from Heaven and gotten a sympathetic shoulder-slap and a "Buck up, Heaven sucks anyways. Much more fun in Hell."
Dean himself had been caught out as a living soul, and there had been an awkward moment before the ferryman had snorted.
"Look, if you're here to issue a challenge to get a loved one out of Hell, just sneak into the palace and tell the King. The Gatekeeper's run off somewhere, you might be able to make it. If you can get to him, he'll probably listen to you. It's no use trying to steal souls away quietly anymore, security just got upped again. There's patrols who'll stop you from getting to the souls. Soon we'll need to report every time we want to talk to each other."
Dean, unsure what to do with that, had just lain on the Winchester charm and moved on.
Once they got into Hell, it was a little more complicated. The other souls on the ferry had milled around, some of them sought out and led away by demons, some just standing and waiting.
When a demon started giving an orientation, Dean and Castiel had figured it was time to split. No one gave Dean Winchester an orientation, not even for his little brother. They did steal some of the maps handed out, though.
The maps had claimed that deals were enacted in Ring Six, so they'd decided to cut through Ring four to get there. Apparently Hell's rings weren't concentric—they weren't even round, actually. If getting to Sammy hadn't been so important, Dean might have felt cheated.
Castiel had brought up the ferryman's warnings about the guards, but Dean hadn't been willing to let his brother suffer because they'd lollygagged trying to rescue him.
They'd had to slip past countless sets of guards on the way to the Fourth, some of whom could see past Castiel's mojo and tried to chase them, but Dean had been stubborn.
Once the demons had realized that someone was there that shouldn't be, Dean began to regret that stubbornness. He and Castiel had had to run, fight, hide, and trick every kind of demon Dean had ever heard of, and more besides. They'd lasted hours before a freaking SWAT team of demons had tracked them down.
Fucking demon SWAT teams.
They'd been shut into a jail of some sort, and warned direly against escaping. Any questions about Sam had been met with laughter and taunts.
Finally, one of their SWAT-team-turned-jailors had gone to report to one of the higher-ups. It had come back grinning.
"You two should feel honored," it said, grinning sickly. "The Seiten has some free time, so you're going to get a visit from the King of Hell himselfand his right-hand man. You're the first people who've been able to breach the security since the new Gatekeeper got here, so I'm sure they'll have some…questions for you."
Shit. Shit shit shit.
Dean and Castiel exchanged a glance before Castiel stood up straighter and forced his eyes forward. We'll stay strong through this.
Dean nodded. Damn straight we will. And then the demons bowed deep as two figures approached. Straining his eyes, Dean could almost hear them.
"I'm just saying, this chucklehead managed to get past my patrols. A little eternal torture might be deserved here! And maybe recruitment. We could use someone with that kind of skills on our side, if you're right about the three-month deadline…"
"Aren't you supposed to be the moral high ground here? Requesting eternal torture is kind of ruining your image, Gabriel. Besides, it's probably some lost angel looking for the Cage or something." Another voice shot back. They were both still too far away to hear well, but Dean could almost swear...
Dean shot a look at Castiel, who was busy looking stunned.
"Castiel?" Dean murmured. "This is an illusion, right? Something the demons are doing?"
Castiel just kept staring past the bars of the cell. The voices, ever closer, had moved on to bickering about who was ruining whose moral integrity without offering any answers, but one of them just sounded so much like Sammy.
"Cas," Dean hissed. Cas blinked hard, even though he was supposedly above human things like blinking and breathing, and snapped out of it.
"I can't feel any illusions. However, there may be wards preventing me from noticing anything unusual, or something of the like," he offered. The voices were almost on top of them.
"Yeah, so says mister Screw-Fate-I'm-Gonna-Go-Become-King-Of-Hell. I mean, really? Morality at its finest, there." 'Gabriel' teased as two figures finally appeared just outside of the door to their jail building. One of them was much taller than the other, and had wings where the other only gave the impression of wings—something about the way he walked.
Both had fairly long hair, for men, with just the slightest hint of a curl. Both carried themselves with a kind of self-righteousness Dean had only ever seen in one person. Both of them were greeted with deep bows or kneeling from all the demons in the room, and one of the SWAT demons shot a sharp glance at Dean and Cas that heavily implied that they should be kneeling, too.
Right. Good to know that these guys were pretty important, no matter who they were. But if someone had possessed Sammy…
Both of the demons froze just inside the door.
"Dean?" The Sam lookalike asked incredulously. "I thought I told you not to interfere with my deal! What are you doing here?"
"Christo." Dean responded instantly. All the demons in the room flinched, but the two newcomers remained unperturbed. Combined with how the demon knew Sam's last words to Dean, Cas's inability to sense any trickery, and how he held himself just exactly like Sam…
"Did you pay any attention to my deal, Dean? I go to Hell, I rule for a little while, and then I'm free to go. I mean, I wasn't exactly expecting the five-star treatment either, but it really is me," Sam offered.
"Yeah, right. Sam would never go for that," Dean snarled. It couldn't be Sam. Sam knew better.
"What, were you expecting me to languish in torment? Been there, done that, Dean. These people need my help, they need a leader. I happened to be around. I can help people like this, Dean." Sam protested, just the hint of pleading coming into his voice.
"The last time you walked with demons, your good intentions did not prevent your actions from having ramifications." Castiel finally spoke up, breaking off the bizarre staring contest he had going on with the other not-demon guy.
Sam flinched, and curled inward on himself a little. The SWAT demons tensed.
"Wow, brother, harsh. Are we gonna bring up your involvement in that, too? Or maybe Dean-o breaking the first seal? We all screwed up last time, but this time the Moose's plan isn't half bad. Well. Not compared to our last plan." The other guy, a pretty short guy with eyes that were definitely not natural, looked relaxed as he practically strutted right into Castiel's face from across the cell bars. Something he said must have struck a chord, since Cas looked thoughtful.
"Are you certain, Gabriel?"
The man snorted. "We've already thrown our lot in with the Winchesters, Castiel. It's not like we can stop now. Besides, ruling Hell without actually Falling in the first place? A benevolent ruler of the underworld? The irony just kills me; I have to stick around!"
Dean officially no longer cared. Castiel could sort out his identity issues later.
"You sure this is a good thing?" He asked probably-Sam, wishing his brother would meet his eyes.
Lo and behold, Sam looked up. He nodded confidently, stepping forward. "You might not believe me, but things are really changing here. Gabriel and I, we've…well, it's been busy, but it's been worth it. So much is different now from how it used to be, there's completely new management and it's-"
"If power has changed hands as completely as you claim, what has happened to those who used to be in power?" Castiel challenged.
Sam stopped meeting anyone's eyes. "They. Um. I. Sorry? I didn't—I mean, I thought I was just stuck and I kind of—well I—I killed them all. I…I don't like to talk about it."
"Hold up, you expect me to believe you killed everyone in Hell? All the big bads in a couple of days?" Dean protested.
Sam dug his foot into the ground. "It's not like there was a lot of upper management when I got here," he defended weakly.
"What, so you just killed them all and no one had issues with that? And now you can just run around doing whatever?"
Castiel intervened before they could really get going. "It's not as unlikely as it sounds. The King of Hell is automatically very powerful where demons are concerned, so if Sam were to want to kill a demon, especially already enraged, it would not be difficult for him. Besides, the majority of Hell had already accepted him, hadn't they?"
Sam just nodded, the little bitch. "I was kinda kidnapped, remember? Hell wanted me to stay, so everyone was pretty much willing to do anything to convince me to stick around. Not to mention the part where I can't leave."
"You still can't leave, then." Dean latched on to the only part of this insane trip that made sense.
"Welcome to Hell, we let you run away from your problems. I can't go topside because I don't want to be noticed by the rest of the Host; he can't go because he said he'd stay and rule. Once the month's up he could just drop Hell like a hot potato, but until then, no one leaves." 'Gabriel' looked bored. "Are we done with the exposition yet? Dean-o still needs the grand tour."
Sam jumped, like he'd forgotten that Dean was still in a dungeon in Hell. "Right! Rasputin, you can let them out now."
One of the stupid SWAT demons moved forward to open the door of the cell.
"Rasputin?" Dean muttered, looking at the inhuman thing. "Really?"
It snarled and let him pass. Overcompensating bastard.
"You got any holy water, silver knives, anything? I'd use mine, but…" Sam trailed off sheepishly.
"I would be able to sense any trickery." Castiel supplied, but Castiel was a supernatural creature of dubious origin and Dean pretended to gently shove at Sam to cover the movement of a silver knife.
"Hey! What are you testing me for?" Gabriel whined, rubbing at his arm as it quickly sealed itself up.
"That's Sam. I'd be able to tell if it wasn't. I'm just not sure what you are." Well, he's only fairly confident, but that's how these things go sometimes. Besides, Dean was expecting Sam to be in Hell, he wasn't expecting some other guy with him. And he didn't like how familiar Sam was with all these nonhuman something-or-others.
"Dude. Do you even read? Gaaabriel? Ringing any bells here?" The thing mocked him, smirking.
"Behave. Dean, this is the archangel Gabriel, yes, he really is the archangel Gabriel, he's been helping me. Gabriel, you already know Dean. We can talk more once we're back home, shall we?" Sam introduced coolly, just on this side of pissed. Yeah, they had been wasting a little time, but that was some serious irritation for a few minutes of being united with his brother.
"Wait, wait, let me guess. Someone's summoning you?" Gabriel asked.
Sam groaned. "Got it in one. I hate it when that happens."
"I thought you could not resist summons." Castiel intoned, tilting his head like he always did.
Sam sighed through his nose. "I can't. I've gotten better at it, but I still end up wherever I'm summoned. I can't leave Hell, though, so I basically get a pissing contest between the summoning and the deal. In my brain. Let me tell you, it sucks."
He turned and walked out the door. Dean, not wanting to let his brother disappear like that, hurried after.
Forgiveness? Better yet, feedback?
