Author's note: Okay, so this is it, the end of the story. I hope you all enjoy it!

Once more thanks to Ghastly Eternity for beta-reading and thanks a lot to everyone who reviewed or put this on their favorite list or to their story alerts. As I already said there'll be a sequel dealing with the rest of the Apocalypse which I'll start to upload in the next few days.

9

"Don't say I never did anything for you," Dean said just before he activated the fire alarm. He would have done so if his brother hadn't grabbed his hand just a second before it hit its target anyway.

"I've got one more question for him, that's all," Sam explained.

"What was the lesson here?" he finally voiced his question after a few moments of tense silence.

"You two, accepting your destiny, playing your roles, getting it over with? Ring any bells?" Gabriel sing-songed in the sort of mocking tone he had brought to perfection over the centuries.

"Yeah, I got that the first time around. That's the lesson you were trying to teach us", Sam replied rolling his eyes, though he had to admit that he should have voiced his question differently from the start, "What's the lesson you were trying to teach me?"

"And what makes you think you're so special that you deserve another lesson just for yourself, especially after you completely ignored my last one?" Gabriel countered mockingly, mostly because he honestly didn't know what Sam was talking about though. He really didn't appreciate how in the course of an hour or less both Winchesters had made him feel like he wasn't the nearly omniscient being that he very much liked to think he was.

Granted Dean's little rant about him just being too afraid to stand up to his family – Michael and Lucifer specifically – was leaving the greater impression, but he was rather miffed about Sam thinking that he could read Gabriel well enough to figure out his motives as well.

"But you," the younger Winchester started only to stop speaking, suddenly unsure if he wasn't just imagining things. He cleared his throat and tried again though. "Look, you were trying to humiliate me a lot harder than you were trying with Dean. I mean I was the one to be hit in the balls on some Japanese Game Show…"

"You really took that one like a man. Credit where it's due," Gabriel interrupted "Also I let them shoot Dean on Dr. Sexy. That has to count for something!"

The older Winchester couldn't help wincing slightly when that particular adventure was brought up again. He kept himself from throwing his two cents in, if only so Sam would get his point across faster and they could leave sooner though. Dean also shoved the unwanted thought that the Trickster might mess with Sam more, but sure as hell liked using lethal force on Dean better to the very back of his mind.

"I was the one you gave genital herpes," Sam went on talking, as if there hadn't been an interruption in the first place.

"Oh no, I didn't give you anything, just made you say that you had it!" Gabriel insisted. There was an important difference there, after all. Alright, so if it had seemed funnier to him at the time he would have actually given Sam the disease as well, but it hadn't and he hadn't so again that had to count for something.

He was beginning to see that the other man might have a point, however. He made himself think some of the other scenarios he had put the brothers in through. Had he really made Sam the main victim of his pranks? If so, he hadn't done it on purpose and that was worrying in itself.

"I was the one who had to be a contestant on 'America's Next Top Model'! Jason was going for me, when he could just as easily have gone for Dean! The Jerry Springer Show was all about how much of a fuck up I am! Freaking Martha Stewart was molesting me! It was my leg that had to be waxed! I ended up wearing that dress!" Sam went through the further points on his list, noticing that Gabriel had fallen silent, which had to mean something he was sure, so he ended with the last thing that had happened before they had unmasked the archangel "And I was the one you turned into the freaking Impala!"

There was silence for a few seconds as everyone waited for the answer the archangel was going to give. They were waiting in vain however.

Sam sighed and finally prompted, "Are you saying that I'm just imagining all this? 'Cause the numbers are speaking against you! So what is it? Lucifer annoyed you when you were both baby-angels and you're taking it out on me now?"

Really Sam wasn't too keen on bringing the more logical explanation up by himself, but he was masochistic enough to want to hear the archangel say that the entire apocalypse was his fault and that he had been punished for that.

"Oh please," Gabriel dismissed Sam's explanation with a casual gesture of his hand. He couldn't give the real explanation, even if he had wanted to however. There just wasn't one as far as he could tell. Then again, he had obviously been drawn toward focusing on the younger Winchester more. There had to be some sort of explanation for that, he could admit that much to himself, even if he would never say any of that out loud.

"You're sure it has nothing to do with me singlehandedly bringing the entire world to an end?" Sam finally just barked. So yeah, maybe his urge to take the sole responsibility for that was getting out of hand. Besides, the lesson he had expected was something along the lines of 'If you break it, you have to pay for it', or maybe, 'if you fuck up as badly as you did, expect to be fucked up in return'. And yes, maybe Sam was just searching for a lesson where there was none, but he was not yet certain that there was nothing more to everything that had happened.

"Now you're just being dramatic," Gabriel replied nonchalantly, "Not like it wouldn't have happened eventually. What's a couple thousand years between friends?"

The angel began to understand that Sam wouldn't let it go until he would give him some sort of answer to his question the human could believe, however. The problem was that he still had no truthful answer to give. So maybe he had bugged Sam more than his brother, but he had no idea what that meant, and even if he had had the inkling of one, he wouldn't have wanted to share his reasoning for sure.

"There has to be something!" Sam insisted, though at this point he wasn't quite sure, why he was even still trying, "Was all that just your way to tell me that I suck?"

Damn if that figure of speech didn't bring unwanted and completely uncalled for pictures to Gabriel's mind. But surely that meant nothing other than him clearly being a pervert, which he'd willingly admit to at any time. If the shoe fit…

"You are way more fun to torment," he offered in the way of explanation with a casual shrug finally, "Have you ever seen your own bitch-faces? They're just great, I'm telling you."

"That's it?" Sam asked incredulous. A part of him desperately wanted to believe in what the archangel had just said, after all that would be some kind of answer, and moreover, one after which Sam had been the more or less incidental target. Nothing to do with Lilith, Lucifer, or the Apocalypse and that really was a rare occurrence these days.

"Afraid so, kiddo," Gabriel replied easily offering a smirk, "Look, if you don't mind, I have things to see, people to do, you know the drill."

"Okay then," Sam stated rather emotionless, after staring at the other man trying to find any sign that he had lied, for another few moments. He understood that he had to let the question go at that moment, though. He wasn't going to get any other answers and maybe it was better that way.

Sam turned around quickly and went towards the exit to the warehouse where Dean was still standing. "I'm done. Do your thing."

The older Winchester frowned slightly, looking after his brother, before he pulled the fire-alarm that would eventually free Gabriel from the ring of holy fire.

"You're a massive dick," he told the archangel, shaking his head slightly and leaving right behind Sam. That at least was a universal truth that applied no matter if Sam had been right or wrong, or if the Trickster had lied or not.

Castiel stayed for another moment to give his brother a searching and questioning look. What was it with every idiot thinking that they could judge Gabriel's motives that day? Maybe he was just reading something into Castiel's stare that wasn't actually there, but he felt like the littlest angel was doing his very best to look straight through him and that was something Gabriel couldn't stand.

"Hurry, Lassie, your owners will leave you behind!" he stated in a fake urgent tone, making shooing motions with his hands. There really was enough on his plate without adding his brother's judgmental stares. After all, he still had Dean's little speech about being a coward ringing in his ears. He'd have to lie if he said that the entire Sam-business was gone from his mind already. Stupid humans and their stupid pseudo-psychological ways!

Castiel looked a little confused, which seemed to be par for the course for him anyway, but got the message and left his brother alone, like the good little pet-angel he was.

Thus Gabriel was left in the very slowly dying out ring of holy fire, wet and with far too much going on in his mind.