a/n: it's so different between posting stories here and posting them on ao3. I always leave notes over there and I've made some long term friends with people in the fandom, and over here is so very quiet.

The samifer ship doesn't usually sail in these waters (it feels much more destiel centered of a place, oddly?). But I'm happy for you few cool cats over here that have been enjoying this story with me. I'm glad we found each other.

Two days.

It took two days for Dean and Bobby to get back from that house in Kansas that breathed and shifted like it knew they were there. And as it turned out two days was slightly too much for Sam to be alone with his thoughts. Plenty of time to start feeling human again, but way too long for him to be thinking about all sorts of things that he usually did his best not to think about.

Sam wasn't stupid, even though it really seemed that way sometimes. Book smarts he had more than plenty of and an innate ability to empathise with almost anyone he met, but Dean had always been the one with the charm―the one who could flirt and smile and sweet talk the pants off of anybody who caught his eye. And it's not like Sam wanted the same thing. There wasn't any specific pair of pants that he was hoping to get on the floor, he just wished he had a bit more of the swagger and experience that his big brother seemed to have been born with.

He had to play the cards he'd been dealt. Those socially awkward, cards that couldn't ever tell if someone actually liked him or not because he never knew if he was just hopeful or projecting, or if they were simply being nice. Jess had been very forward. She'd kissed him first and that had cleared things up in his mind right quick.

But for years now he'd been utterly lost trying to piece together all the sideways comments and long looks that the devil was always casting at his feet. Dean seemed to know what it all meant though (or at least like to think that he did as he liked to always think that he knew what was going on), and now Gabriel knew too.

So very clearly Sam could hear those words that the angel had spoke with such amused outrage: 'You want me to explain that to you?' like he understood every part of what Sam and Lucifer were always fumbling so awkwardly over.

And Sam couldn't help but spend those two days thinking, and overthinking all those strange offers and questions and hesitant touches.

Everything would be simpler if he'd just been able to simply stop having the same stupid crush on Lucifer that he'd had since he was a kid.

Then he wouldn't be eternally hoping that little things meant big things even though he knew that in actuality he was only dealing with an ageless monster who simply didn't understand humans.

God, but he was grateful when Dean came swaggering into the house, still stinking of smoke. He'd texted back when they'd torched the house and found the gun, but his goofy grin said that he was still riding high on the success of the hunt.

"Sammy, my boy," he held his ash dusted arms out like he wanted a hug. "Look at you, up and walking around."

There was a stiffness that lingered in Sam's joints, and a stumbling soreness like his bones had been bruised, but it hadn't been enough to keep him from coming to the door when he'd heard the familiar rumble of Bobby truck coming up the drive.

Reluctantly, he let Dean pull him in for a short but thorough hug, the kind that left him almost breathless. He pounded on his big brother's back and gave him as much of a smile as he could force. "Glad to have you guys back. I was going crazy here by myself."

"By yourself?" Bobby grunted as he came in the door that Dean had left open. The old man nodded up to the ceiling and the bedrooms above them. "What happened to tall, unconscious and feathery?"

"His uh, brother came and fixed him up."

"Son, you inviting friends over while I'm gone?" It was almost like teasing, which mean that Bobby too was in a fantastic mood. Nothing like burning down a haunted house to put a man in good spirits. "What have I told you about throwing angel parties while I'm out?"

The idea of Lucifer doing anything that could pass as 'partying' was enough to make Sam laugh. He released his brother and surveyed the two hunters. "You guys look awful."

"Yeah well, killing a teraphim isn't easy work for an old man." Bobby took off his baseball cap as he moved into the kitchen, setting it on the table before going to the fridge and taking out a beer for himself.

"For an old man?" Dean shook his head, smiling at Sam. "Yeah, the old man distracted the damn thing while I gotta go get whatever journals I could before we burnt the damn son of a bitch to the foundations."

Through texts from his brother, Sam had found out what the other two had gone back to Kansas to kill. An old world household god that had apparently been grossly mistreated and gotten very angry about it. It was probably a once in a lifetime kind of monster hunt, and to be honest Sam was sort of happy to have sat this one out, seeing as it had already killed him once.

"So books for you, Sammy." Dean smacked his shoulders almost gently, obviously still worried about how injured his baby brother had been as of late. "And a shiny new gun for me."

"You've got another thing coming if you think I'm going to let you boys walk out of here with that gun." Bobby said without much threat. The man was more of less retired from any hunting that wasn't within a few hours of his home. He prefered to stay in and safely do the kind of research that could be passed on to help kept young and overly eager hunters like Sam and Dean alive. "Not until I get a good look at it, see how it measures up to all the notes."

It wasn't every day that you came across a legendary weapon. Sam couldn't blame Bobby for wanting to get a good and thorough look at it.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm not gonna fight you for it, Bobby." Dean looked amused, obviously thinking the same thoughts that Sam was. They weren't in a hurry here. "I could though." Dean confided softly to his brother. "Old man's getting rusty."

"I'm old, not deaf, boys." He set two more beer bottles on the table as an unspoken invitation. "Do I still have those steaks in the freezer?"

Sam nodded and scuffed his feet on his way to go sit down.

With a soft grunt, Bobby set to making some dinner for the three of them and only after the steaks were all sizzling in the pan on the old gas range top did he start talking again. "So, how many angels have you boys met now?"

"Just the two," Sam rolled his nearly empty beer bottle between his hands as he launched into a brief and slightly edited version of meeting Lucifer's younger brother.

"You think it's any kind of food he can make whenever, or just ice cream?" Dean, naturally, focused on the important parts.

"Angels vary from religion to religion and there's not much consistency in the lore in any direction you read up," Bobby set a pot of water on to boil, because apparently they were having pasta with their slabs of meat. "But most records seem to agree that they're supposed to be able to alter space and time, some of the most powerful creatures to ever walk the face of the Earth, and you're trying to figure out if if this new one can get you pie?"

Dean shrugged, grinning without an ounce of shame. "What can I say? I'm a simple man."

It wasn't fair that all Sam could think was how much he wished that everyone was as easy to read as his big brother.

.:.

"Lucifer," a proper prayer felt blasphemous, but talking to the evening sky felt idiotic. Still, Sam tried. He was out on the back porch with some half hearted excusing of wanting to get some air. Bobby had gone to shower and probably knock off to sleep early, and Dean had simply gone to bed despite stinking of cinders and a long few days on the road. "I've never called for you… formally. So I don't know if I'm doing this right. But, yeah. Can you hear me?"

The night didn't answer him.

He hadn't really expected it to?

"Dean brought the colt back. At least he brought a colt revolver back. It matches the descriptions that Bobby had in his books." He felt every inch like he was only talking to himself, but he had no idea how this was supposed to work. "You said I didn't have to write your name anymore, that you'd just come if I called… you ass. I'm calling you. Pick up. Breaker breaker one-niner. Can you hear me, Lucifer?"

It was amazing how easy it was to feel stupid. To feel crazy. Standing there on the porch, talking to no one about a magical gun. It made Sam miss that little window in his life where things were simple, where the only thing he had to worry about were sociology papers and finding the right balance between sleep and studying all night.

"Are you still looking for a body?" He rattled the pen he'd brought out with him against the worn porch railing. "Can you just pop up in my head like you used to?"

Frustrated, he uncapped the pen and carefully drew out on a scrap of paper the strangely curling symbol that had worked three times before to summon up the devil. It still didn't look quite right, and he would have to ask the other man where his line were going wrong, but at the same time, it didn't look any more off than the previous times he'd scrawled it out.

And yet it remained just him out on the porch, breathing in the warm night air as the sky steadily dimmed and the sounds of crickets rallied out in the salvage yard.

"You jerk." He told the piece of paper because it was the only direction that he had for his irritation. "You promised you'd show up."

.:.

The majority of the time that Bobby and Dean had been off hunting, Sam had spent sleeping off the worst of his injuries and doing his best not to think too hard about certain angels who apparently sucked at keeping promises. It meant that he hadn't really had any time to do his regular bookworm routine and scour all news sources for the weird and unexplained. When he came down for breakfast the morning after his unanswered prayers he was a little startled to see Bobby watching the news on the little grainy pictured portable television that usually sat unplugged in the corner of the study as a bookend.

There was no need to ask what was going on.

The coffee pot sat neglected on the burner as Sam slowly came to stand beside Bobby and watch the little static lined screen.

"- nationwide manhunt continues. Bodies were found outside of the Las Vegas strip this morning as this horrific string of murders tragically claims five more victims." A female reporter's voice was played over footage of desert sands and sluggishly swaying police tape as uniformed officers moved around in the background. "Local authorities are urging anyone who may have witnessed anything unusual taking place last night between the hours of nine and midnight near the Toluca Casino to contact the tip line at-"

Bobby nodded to Sam, motioning with his mostly empty mug towards the stove in an offering of breakfast. "You heard about this?"

"No," he didn't move, eyes fixed on the info graphic of phone numbers to call and shotty security footage of a cluster seemingly happy people leaving a casino together and heading out towards the parking lot. "What do they mean 'more victims'? What's going on?"

"Started late last night it seems." The old man shook his head like the whole thing was more disappointing than concerning. "Eight cities so far, bodies turning up with their eyes burnt out."

"That's… that sounds like our kind of thing."

"Dean's already packing the car." He ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair. "There's a plate of pancakes in the oven for you boys. Something for the road. Nearest crime scene is in Billings, Montana."

Which was a bad start to a bad hunt.

Six crime scenes in four days and neither Dean or Sam had a clue what the hell was going on. They'd examined bodies and talked to bereaved families and all that the brothers knew for sure was that out of the twenty two victims over half of them had stunk of sulfur. They'd made it all the way down to Vegas, and Sam was sweating through his suit but keeping an air of importance and calm as he and Dean stood on opposite sides of some fairly artist burns that had been left in the pavement.

This corner of the parking lot out back of the casino was still barred from public use with yellow caution tape (an inconvenience that made the owner rather short and irritable when the Winchesters had come to talk see if they could review any copies of the security footage). And no one really marked where bodies fell in real life, that was all for real crime documentary crap or newspapers because showing an actual dead body on the ground would have been insensitive. They didn't need that easy to follow outline though―the sprawl of chard asphalt in the shape of wings showed exactly where the corpse had lain before the cops came and cleaned things up.

There hadn't been any signs of wings at the other crime scenes. Just the acrid scent of sulfur. It sort of screamed 'dead angel' but it was an unpleasant conclusion. Demons were trouble enough on their own (though dead ones had been kind of a nice turn of luck for once in their lives), but throwing angels in the mix sort of opened things up to something much bigger than either hunter was really ready to deal with.

Dean's suit jacket was unbuttoned, his tie sitting crooked on his chest while the dry air stirred around them, the hair on his temples dark with sweat. "So what, we got us a bunch of dead demons on our hands, which I ain't complaining about by the way… but what the fuck?"

"What are the chances that this isn't because of Heaven and Hell knowing that Lucifer's AWOL?"

"Slim to none?"

Sam took a breath of the thin desert air and his throat felt dry and gritty. He didn't like admitting that the part of this whole thing that bothered him the most was that it meant Lucifer might be in danger. He didn't want to worry about the devil. No one should ever have to worry about the devil and whether or not he was doing ok.

"Aw, Sammy. You worried about your boyfriend?" And it wasn't fair how easily Dean could read him.

"He's not," my boyfriend! "answering when I call. But he's probably just still out looking for a vessel or whatever." And Sam had 'prayed' to Lucifer for three nights in a row before giving up. He liked to hope that the angel had important things going on, and wasn't intentionally avoiding him, or just unable to answer―It was a nicer line of reckoning.

Dean loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. "Is that why you've been pissy the past few days? You really that worried about the son of a bitch? Come on, man. He's the actual Satan. I'm sure he's fine. Out there somewhere doing Satan-things and he's just too busy to answer the phone."

Those words were possibly meant to be comforting, but calming nerves had never been one of Dean's strong suits.

"Shut up." Sam ran a hand over the back of his neck, then wiped the sweat off on a pant leg. "You want to go on to the next crime scene, or you want to head to the coroners and be sure it was demons this time too?"

"What I want is to figure out if this is something that we need to actually worry about, or if we just let the demons and angels duke it out and keep clear." He cast one last look down at the burnt pavement and shook his head. "And a cold beer. I'd kill for a cold beer."

Sam could only shrug, feeling a line of sweat running down his back because whoever thought that Nevada in the summer was a good thing was just wrong.

"Heya, you think you can, uh, call up your boyfriend's brother or something?" Dean lit up at his own suggestion. "He could tell us how good ol' Luci is doing, ease that worried mind of yours… and maybe he knows why angels and demons are having slap fights down here."

It wasn't a stupid suggestion, but Sam had a feeling that there was an ulterior motive in his big brother's wise line of reasoning. "You just want to see if he'll give you free ice cream."

"I'm not gonna' turn down some heavenly ice cream if he offers, Sammy. But come on, you have any better ideas for a lead? 'Cause otherwise we're just going state to state looking at corpses and it feels like a fuckin' waste of time."

A push in the right direction wouldn't be a bad thing, Sam just wasn't sure he was ready to ask for this kind of help.

They made it back to their hotel room, shedding their suits like molting birds. Dean was down to boxers and an undershirt, standing before the little window AC unit with his arms splayed wide.

Sam had pulled on jeans but couldn't bear the thought of more clothes until the sweat on his skin had dried. He was spread out on one of the twin beds with a pile of journals within reach. He'd gone through Dad's and he'd gone through the ones collected from the dead hunter's house that they'd pulled the colt from. Two pages written in that cramped script talked about summoning an angel named Artiya'il who was supposed to be able to remove grief, and then the three subsequent pages were about how to ward against angels. It was a strange narrative for a dead hunter and Sam sort of felt sorry about whatever had obviously gone very wrong in their life.

"You figure it out, college boy?" Dean's voice stifled as he spoke directly into the blast of cold air.

"It… it's actually really easy, but it also looks like a really stupid idea." Sitting up, Sam rested the stranger's journal on one leg. There were all kinds of protection that they should probably lay out first, a ring of holy oil among other precautions―but Sam had already met Gabriel and the little guy seemed squirrely but not nearly as dangerous as whatever pissed off angel that this dead hunter had stupidly summoned up. "It's just some words in Enochian."

"Just some words?"

"I'm not so sure on how to pronounce them right, but I'll give it a go?"

Dean looked over his shoulder, oddly surprised that apparently it would be that easy. "Yeah, just let me get some pants on first."

Being dressed wasn't a bad idea, so Sam dug a clean-ish shirt from his bag, pulled it on and did his best to not butcher the words of a language that were probably never meant for human mouths to speak.

"―ah ma lah deh zod." He finished the little chant and waited kind of expectantly.

From the other side of the room, Dean raised an eyebrow. "That it?"

"I think so?" Sam frowned and looked back at the very carefully written words before trying the incantation again but with a slightly different weight on some of the short syllables.

Head down in the journal he was more than a little startled when someone other than Dean told him, "yeah, yeah. I heard you the first time."

Sam's chest went tight and he looked up to see Gabriel standing there in the middle of the hotel room. It wasn't a feeling of danger so much as just shock that it had actually worked.

"So, you just call to chat, big boy?" He looked Sam slowly up and down, taking in the bed that he was sitting cross legged on. "Because as flattering as it is, Luci isn't going to like this little crush you've got on me."

Why?

Sam glanced down at the book and wondered if it might be a bit insulting to read out the angel banishing spell on the next page. Even sitting, he could easily looked over the angel's head to give Dean a weighted look. A look that he hoped conveyed his reservations about this whole plan.

But his brother only offered a shrug that looked a bit too much like he was holding back laughter.

"We were hoping for some insight." Sam told the archangel, setting aside the journal and the temptation to nope out of this situation.

"Oooh, insight." Gabriel turned to examine the man at his back. "How about you, brother of my brother's pet human. You hoping for insight, good lookin'?"

And Dean's little smile was smothered by a mixture of confusion and disapproval. "We were wondering if you know why there's suddenly two dozen dead demons turning up with their eyes burnt out of their heads."

"See, now this is why I don't like hunters. You're all business and zero fun." Gabriel slowly showed himself around the rather small room, peering into the bathroom and raising an eyebrow at the painting of neon palm trees hanging between the beds. "But I got to say, I'm digging the vintage miami nightlife deco you've got going. It's like I've retired and gone to tacky-hell." He sat on the bed opposite Sam and was just simply unwrapping a candy bar when there hadn't been one in his hand the moment before. "So, what about demons?"

"Twenty one demons as far as we can tell," but there were still two crime scenes that they'd yet to visit so it could easily be more, and Sam had his suspicions that more and more would keep turning up each day. "We think one dead angel too."

Gabriel didn't answer right away, taking a bite of chocolate with his molars, letting the candy pull his cheek sideways as he squinched up one eye. "It happens. We're not immortal."

The disinterest in the angel's tone struck Sam. "You're not worried?"

"This fight's been going on since before the first fish dragged itself on land and considered growing thumbs." And there was an echo in Gabriel of that same disdain that Lucifer had towards humans, but with a significant less amount of salt behind it. "It's not the kind of thing I lose sleep over."

But those were the sorts of words that Dean couldn't let lie. "We tell you that you've got a dead brother or sister and you say you're not gonna to lose sleep over it?"

The angel sat there chewing slowly and watching Dean with a rather blank expression before a smile washed over him. "You're cute when you get all offended. Makes those freckles of yours really stand out."

Anger darkened Dean's cheeks. "Bite me, short stack."

"Maybe later." Gabriel offered back with a wink.

And that gave Dean enough of a startled pause that Sam was able to butt in. "We just don't normally see this many dead demons." Seeing as dead demons meant dead human hosts it wasn't so easy to just focus on the silver lining.

"Everything's been a bit crazy upstairs since Luci visited. Most garrisons have come down looking for him," Gabriel shrugged like it wasn't really a big deal. "I keep out of the family business, have for a few millenium, so I can't get you any details on how the hunt's going."

Sam didn't want to ask because he knew that it would sound needy, but he realised with his current company there was really not saving face at this point. So he went for it. "Is Lucifer ok?"

"He's never been in the same zip code as ok." Gabriel laughed. "Have you actually ever met my brother?"

"I mean…" frustration and worry made Sam feel a little sick and he hated it. "I've been trying to call him for a few days and he's not answering."

For just a second Gabriel's eyes widened, but then his smile was back, firmly in place. "Huh. Well, you know what they say about boys being horrible about returning calls. Don't worry so much, Sammy."

Meeting someone else who was equally bad at offering comforting words as his brother was not something that Sam necessarily needed in his life.

"It's just Sam." He corrected out of habit, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

"We've still got a bunch of dead human hosts on our hands." Dean folded his arms over his chest. "If you don't want to worry about your dead sibling that's on you. But our business is hunting monsters and keeping people safe. So you got any idea on whatever is killing all these poor suckers?"

"If I cared enough to look at the bodies I could probably give you the name of the exact angel that did it, but dead bodies are gross and I'm not interested in a field trip to a morgue." He shrugged his narrow shoulders and chomped on the last bit of his candy, talking with slightly sticky sounding words. "My brothers and sisters tend to get a little smite-happy when they find demons. Keep clear, don't get possessed, and you boys'll be just fine."

"That's it?" Sam got to his feet, angry and antsy and realising what a colossal waste of time this whole conversation was shaping up to be. Sure, it was almost helpful to know that it was an angel who'd been killing demons, but there were no notes or lore on how to stop a murdery angel so what good was Gabriel's insight?

"Look, Sammy." Gabriel ignored Sam's earlier protests against the nickname. "I'm not on speaking terms with my family. I'm not going to go step in and tell them to be more careful with the humans they find demons hiding in or else two uncomfortably attractive hunters are going to come after them." He looked one hundred percent unphased by the way that Sam towered over him. "The long imprisoned King of Hell just popped his head up and spit in the eye of the angel left in charge of Heaven and everyone's pissed."

Oddly, Sam had never really considered that Lucifer was the proper King of Hell, and what his return might mean to the hordes of demons who'd possibly been left to their own devices for the last few thousand years.

"Things are going to be a bit messy for a while." Gabriel said like it wasn't a big deal that people were dying en masse and that the feds were looking for a serial killer. "You've got a few dead demons up here―so what? You should see the chaos down in Hell, everyone scrambling now that they realise that the Big Boss is up and about. It's like all the kids suddenly noticing what a mess they've made of the house and then then see the headlights of Dad's car coming up the driveway and they know he's gonna' be mad and they're gonna' get it."

This analogy would mean that Sam would have to accept that someone out there was actually afraid of Lucifer―and he just couldn't. The devil was sort of sweet in his own weird, frustrating kind of way. Nearly almost kind, but not scary.

For some reason, Gabriel was shaking his head at Sam. "I can't tell if you've got balls of steel and are really half as fearless as you act... or just fatally stupid." He sighed wistfully. "I've got to hand it to Luci, though. Even if you turn out to be the dumbest hunter ever, at least you sure are pretty."

Happily, Dean let out a started laughed before thinking better of it and bearing his teeth at their slightly insulting guest, bristling in defense of his Sam. "Hey now, that's my little brother you're talking about and I ain't got a problem punching a fun sized angel."

"You're welcome to try, Sammy's big brother." He dropped his candy wrapper, letting it flutter from his hand to the floor. "I'd love to watch you break your hand on my adorable little face."

Dean shot Sam a look that said 'never thought I'd miss Lucifer this much' or something along those lines.

"Now, unless you two chuckleheads have more questions…" Gabriel got to his feet, pausing to smile up and down the length of Sam, shaking his head in an appreciative way. "You boys make me consider upgrading my vessel. I like my compact little sport model, but wowie if I'm not tempted to give one of these new, big, luxury ones a test drive."

"I've uh, got a question that isn't about you creepily wanting to ride my brother," Dean offered with something between amusement and disgust coloring his words. "Say we wanna' find a way to save the humans that your brothers an' sisters keep killing. How'd we go about that?"

"Good old fashion exorcism usually does the trick."

"That's only good if we get to them before the murder-y son of a bitch does."

"Well if you're asking how to help them after the fact the outcome isn't lookin' so good." Gabriel stepped around Sam, moving towards the other hunter. "Unless you boys are asking what to do if you run into one of my siblings?"

Dean hadn't been born a hunter, but he sure had been raised as one, and he was as smart as he was reckless; already planning for what he thought should be done about this 'problem' "A little demon exorcism, a little angel exorcism, everyone goes home happy."

Letting out a mock little gasp of shock, Gabriel put a hand to his chest. "Are you asking me to tell two hunter how to hurt an angel?"

"No," Dean sounded like he was selling something with the smile to match. "Not hurt. Just, ya know, move 'em on their way so we've got a chance to kick out some demons and save some people."

"Never try and kid a kidder," Gabriel grinned up at Dean. "My brother warned me about you, Sam's big brother. 'Don't you tell him anything about anything,' Lucifer said, 'because I can see the way he looks at me, and that man's goal is to fuck up my day'."

His salesman smile turned to a grin, Dean shrugging but not denying anything.

"You boys figured out how to call me―and if you boys want to save some demons, then you can figure out how to get rid of an angel too. All on your own. I'm no snitch." Gabriel raised a hand, fingers curled as he snapped and was simply gone.

"Well…" Sam sagged, letting his shoulders form a defeated hump. "That was oddly unhelpful." And by 'unhelpful' he meant that he still had no idea how Lucifer was doing or why the man wasn't keeping his promises. He very nearly sat himself back down onto the bed but then Gabriel was once more standing in the middle of the room.

Visibly jumping, Dean hissed out a heartfelt, "son of a bitch."

"I forgot something." The tiny blonde almost seemed to apologise before holding out to the older hunter what looked very much like a pie. "I know you said 'ice cream', but we both know you're a sweet cherry pie kind of man." He forcibly handed the pastry to Dean and vanished from the room once more.

Slowly, Sam finished lowering himself to the bed, unsure about all of this, but also kind of amused with the way that Dean looked like a kid at Christmas; standing there just so happily admiring his surprise pie.

Gabriel had been a dead end of information but at least Dean was in a good mood.