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You guys are all so awesome and supportive, it's totally making my days to read your reviews! :-)

25

As had to be expected the older Winchester didn't take the news about three or four pagans keeping his brother prisoner very well. In fact, he promised to come and bust Sam out guns blazing, if the bastards didn't release him immediately. The younger Winchester tried to reassure his brother that he was in much better hands with his three new capturers than he had been with the ones before, but of course the statement fell pretty much on deaf ears. Sam had to admit that he hadn't made a very good point to begin with, though.

He was however glad to hear that Castiel had shown up to assist Dean with the seal shortly after the younger Winchester had sent his last text message. Together the angel and his brother had even managed to save the unfortunate child who would have been next on the list.

Sam ended the call just as Hel emerged from her bedroom, looking just a little paler – if that was even possible – and more disheveled than ever before. She seemed to be fine again otherwise, however. It actually was very heartwarming to watch how both Fenrir and Jörmungandr were fussing over their sister, hugging her and licking her hand respectively.

"I'm so glad to see you're okay," Hel stated, pulling the younger Winchester into her arms after her brothers were done doting over her.

"Shouldn't I be saying that?" Sam smiled, hugging her back. Really, she had gotten herself into a confrontation with a reaper and a full blown fight with an angel because of him which was more than enough to make the younger Winchester think that she would be better off never having known him or not being his friend in the very least.

"It takes more than that to keep me down," the goddess commented casually, ignoring the disapproving glare Jörmungandr sent her way. She knew he must have been worried, just like Sam and Fenrir clearly had been worried, but dramatizing the situation wouldn't help any, either. She would charge the angel again without a second thought, if they ever got into a similar situation again, anyway.

It was only a few minutes later that Loki made his entrance. To tell the truth, if he hadn't appeared in the middle of the room none of them might have even noticed, however. The god was quiet and only moved when Fenrir ran up to him, checking him over for the injuries the blood on his clothes suggested might be somewhere still.

"Oh get off me, you big puppy," Gabriel chuckled half-heartedly, "It's not my blood."

Both Hel and Fenrir visibly relaxed after hearing that and Sam had to admit that he was relieved, as well. He wasn't even trying to convince himself that he was only happy that the siblings wouldn't have to deal with their father having been wounded or worse. As little as he liked it, the feeling was all his and stemmed from the fact that he didn't want to see Loki hurt, at least not like this.

"Alright, kiddies," Gabriel addressed his children a few moments later, "I'd like to talk to our guest alone for a minute."

It wasn't exactly surprising that Jörmungandr merely shrugged and went to leave, but Sam couldn't help feeling a little betrayed when Fenrir and Hel turned on their heels, as well. He really didn't want to be in a room alone with the other man, even if they really had things to talk about that didn't even have to be all too personal. He wouldn't let them get personal, anyway.

"Sam…" the archangel started in a tone that immediately made alarm bells go off in the younger Winchester's mind and he raised an arm to stop him from speaking on.

"Look, we can talk business, we can talk tactics, but don't act like we're friends," Sam stated resolutely. At least, the other man had kept his distance. It was hard enough to ignore the part of himself that simply wanted to sit down and talk things over until they were okay again as things were. Yes, there was some part of Sam that really wanted to work things out and even though it wasn't the biggest part, it couldn't be silenced either.

"You really have to make this harder than it has to be, don't you?" Gabriel groaned. It wasn't that he didn't understand why the younger Winchester was mad at him, but he had only just killed one of his brothers and wasn't in the mood for any discussions they didn't actually need to have.

"Answer at least one question for me," Sam shot back in a tone that betrayed the hurt feelings he hadn't wanted to acknowledge were even there for the longest time, "What do you want me to call you this time?"

Gabriel really didn't have a good answer to that question. He knew what he wished Sam would call him, but he was pretty sure that the human wouldn't do him that favor. It wasn't really a question the younger Winchester wanted an answer to, anyway. He had a name he could attach to the god, a name he assumed was the real one this time. The actual message had been more along the lines of 'I don't trust you' and 'You hurt me' and the archangel knew it.

"Gabe worked pretty well for us," he finally replied. What he was trying to get across was actually 'I'm still the person you got to know', but it was doubtful that Sam would be willing to listen on that ear.

"Do you think that's funny?" the younger Winchester snapped, "You made me fall in love with a person that never existed. Congratulations on a fucking fantastic joke!"

His emotions had been all over the place ever since Loki had appeared. Not that they had been fully under his control before. It had only been a matter of time until the powder keg of bottled up feelings blew up and Sam couldn't help thinking that at least he got to unleash them on the right person instead of some innocent bystander.

"I didn't force any feelings on you," Gabriel replied in a sharp tone, unwilling to take being accused of one of the little things he actually hadn't done, "I know it would be much more convenient, if you could blame it all on me, but I've got to disappoint you there, that was all you!"

Everything in the younger Winchester bristled against accepting those words, even if he knew that there was truth in them. He hadn't known who he was, but he had still been himself all the same. Sure, he might have been confused and easier to manipulate, but that didn't change the fact that he had made his own decisions, had had his own feelings. Of course, that was the main reason why he couldn't get closure and just move on.

"You know it's true, Sam. I even told you to just accept that I'm a jerk, but you couldn't let it go and had to dig until you found something. And then you liked what you saw," the archangel added with a slight shrug, "I know I made a fuckton of mistakes, but that one's not on me alone."

What the younger Winchester liked the least about the entire talk they were having was how much the trickster god sounded like the person he had come to know, how easy it would be to actually accept that the man he had loved really was a part of the Trickster. Sam wasn't even sure if that would make things better or worse.

"What's keeping me from turning my back on you and just walking out that door right now?" the younger Winchester asked instead of getting even more into thoughts of things that just made him beyond uncomfortable. Standing in front of Loki who still looked exactly like the man a pretty big part of Sam was convinced he was head over heels in love with was bad enough without starting an in depth analysis of the relationship they had had.

"Two things," Gabriel replied nonchalantly, but undoubtedly honestly, "You know better than to turn your back to someone you don't trust and walking out that door would leave you stranded right in the Underworld. It is Hel's place, after all."

Technically the place they were at was neither a part of Earth nor a part of the Underworld, but the archangel would be happy to let his daughter explain the details to the younger Winchester. She'd probably really enjoy having a nice long and possibly somewhat nerdy chat with the human. Chances were Sam would like that much better than talking to Gabriel, too. The thought hurt, of course it did, but he had to be realistic here and the younger Winchester suddenly deciding that there were no hard feelings and they could try again wasn't very realistic. Given the time however, Gabriel had a bit of hope that they could in fact still rekindle their relationship.

"Actually, let's add a third one," the archangel stated a moment later, "We're trying to keep you safe."

Sadly, knowing the younger Winchester, that wouldn't be much of a reason for him to be reasonable and stay put. Really, the human was basically forcing them to keep him locked away! Still, Gabriel knew that this time he would let Sam go, if he really asked for it. Hey, letting him go didn't mean that he couldn't follow wherever he was going to make sure that he was still protected. The archangel wasn't going to keep him prisoner, if he really couldn't see the point of this, though.

"Why?" the younger Winchester asked, his posture still rigid and everything but friendly. He was willing enough to talk about the situation instead of running against walls in a futile attempt to escape, however. Granted, that might have been different, if Loki's three children hadn't been around and if this hadn't been Hel's place. But as things were he didn't feel too tempted to upset the goddess and her furry brother as well as their grumpy sibling.

"Hel and Fenrir got very attached to you," Gabriel started his answer with the part that was easiest to say before he went on with the part that made him feel too damn vulnerable for his liking, "And even though you admittedly have pretty good reasons to hate me, I still love you."

The archangel's sincere words didn't fall on deaf ears exactly, but it was quite clear that the younger Winchester was not ready to really listen to them. In fact, he was trying hard to ignore the not all too big but very vocal part of him that was clinging to the declaration of love and just wanted to go with it. It really was getting frustrating how he could never force that part to just shut up and leave him be.

"Good for you," Sam snorted before he sighed and went on in a bit of a softer tone, "I still don't even know who the hell you are."

Of course, the younger Winchester knew he was talking to Loki, the Norse god of mischief, but he still didn't know any of the things that would let him grasp if and how much he could believe anything the other man said. He had thought he knew Gabe, he really had trusted him with his life, but there was no way for him to tell how much of that person there was in Loki.

"You know me much better than you think," Gabriel replied with a small smile before he rolled his shoulders back and after a short moment of concentration unleashed his wings. He had seriously underestimated how uncomfortable it would be to stretch them after all this time, but the burn of muscles unused for centuries moving again was well worth seeing the expression on Sam's face as he realized what he had just seen.

"You… you're…" the younger Winchester stammered. He had only seen shadows, but Dean had told him before that apparently that was what angel wings were like. A part of him – it really seemed like he was always split at least in two in just about every matter these days – suspected that the Trickster might have come out to play and that he'd be laughed at for falling for it in under a minute, but the greater part of him couldn't deny that he had felt the shift of power in the room the moment the wings had appeared.

"Told you, you could call me Gabriel," the archangel said after he had put his wings away again. That there was no way that he would be in hiding from his celestial brothers much longer didn't mean that he felt comfortable running around advertising what he was to everyone. He still had to work out some details of the general plan he had for the things that were supposed to happen from this point on.

Sam blinked a couple of times before he left the room without another word spoken. Between Uriel trying to get him to fulfill his one purpose in the world by forcing demon blood down his throat – not that that made any sort of sense to him yet – and Fenrir suddenly being a talking wolf with a sense of humor, the revelation of the Trickster's… Loki's… Gabriel's real identity was what broke the camel's back.

"Sam?" Hel asked in a cautious tone, putting her hand on the human's shoulder. She, just like her brothers, had felt the moment their father had revealed his biggest secret all too clearly and it wasn't a big surprise that it was a little overwhelming to the human. "Come on, there's a room for you."

Sam's first impulse was to shake her hand off and tell her to leave him the fuck alone, but he deflated very quickly when he saw the hurt flash across the goddess' face before he had even said anything. It wasn't Hel he was mad at. Actually, he wasn't even mad at Gabriel. There were just too many things to take in at once and a life of hunting had taught him that when in doubt offense was the best defense.

However, as unlikely as it might seem, he was among friends and jumping at their throats for things that weren't their fault really was uncalled for. So, Sam nodded and ducked his head, letting Hel show him the room.

"If those bastards think that they can keep me away from Sam again, they are wrong!" Dean was basically fuming and had been ever since the phone call with his younger brother. At first he had mostly made threats against everything and everyone while Castiel had watched and listened patiently without showing much of a reaction. The older Winchester was switching to making plans about how they would get Sam back slowly but surely now, however.

"Your brother said that he was among friends, even if currently they will not allow him to leave," Castiel pointed out reasonably, which earned him a nasty glare he didn't think he deserved. The angel found that he was getting used to his human charge's tempers, though. He understood that Dean gave rather strong and thoughtless reactions very frequently when something really worried or annoyed him and then felt bad for them afterward.

"Let's agree to disagree on that," the older Winchester stated with strained nonchalance, "And now that that's settled, let's find a way to kick a few pagan asses."

The angel tilted his head to the side giving Dean one of the looks that let the human know without a doubt that he was thinking too hard about something he had just said or done and couldn't make sense of it. There were a lot of things Castiel had yet to learn about humans in general and the older Winchester specifically.

"I think your logic is flawed, Dean," the angel replied seriously, "How is it agreeing on the fact that we do not agree, if you use the agreement to make me do something I just disagreed with? Also, I suspect that your brother would not be happy if we brought any sort of harm to his friends."

The older Winchester couldn't help staring at Castiel for a few moments after the angel had stopped speaking. Of course, he was right in most of the things he had just said, but that didn't make hearing it any less surprising. Apparently, Cas just took some time to warm up to people enough to just tell them what was on his mind.

"Figure of speech," Dean stated, waving his former statement away like he didn't still have the plan to at least throw a few punches, "Alright, Cas, is there a chance that we can agree on at least looking for Sam?"

In the case of a negative answer the older Winchester would just have to look by himself, but he felt like at least offering to the angel that they could work together.

"We can agree on getting to the bottom of Uriel's betrayal," Castiel replied in a serious tone that somehow was still more serious than his usual tone was anyway, "And I believe that there will be leads concerning your brother's whereabouts to be found on the way."

The angel's logic couldn't really be argued with and the older Winchester acknowledged that it would be good for both of them to combine the search for Sam with finding out what the fuck was going on. If Uriel had turned on them there was no way to tell who else might be playing for the wrong team, too. As if the human really had needed another reason to despise his position as heaven's bitch boy.

"Talk about agreements that make people do things… Alright, yeah, we can agree on that," Dean groaned, "But I'm not doing this for heaven, I'm doing it for you."

Castiel's face lit up enough – for his standards, anyway – that the older Winchester considered pointing out that he hadn't meant it as a declaration of love or anything. What he had meant to say was that he wouldn't lift a finger for a bunch of quite possibly traitorous jerks, but he was going to help a friend to find closure over his brother's betrayal.

"I appreciate it," Castiel said so sincerely that Dean immediately dropped the plan to add something in the line of explanation that would probably just lessen his former statement.