Chapter Twenty-Eight: Conspiracy Theories

Disclaimer: Seriously, look at the name of the website

Author's Note: Sorry as always for being so slow. I'm definitely writing more, I'm just also writing more than just this story. I've started in on a story that, while still a fanfic (for Star Trek, TOS), is also more of a proper novella, in the sense that I'm working with a more experienced writer to guide me through creating a cohesive start to finish narrative, rather than a series of chapters which are published as I go. I'm also assisting with a D&D campaign and narrativizing the session notes after each play session. I am still working on this story too, though, so thank you to everyone who has stuck with me. (And welcome, if you're just coming onboard!)

-SQ

Neither angel put in an appearance for three more days, until Sam stepped out of the shower to find Gabriel (as far as he knew), stretched out on his bed, wearing a pair of his boxers. The hunter yelped and grabbed a towel, hastily tying it around his waist and then turning back to glare at the Archangel, cheeks burning. "What the fuck, Gabriel? What are you doing in my bedroom? And why are you wearing my boxers?"

The angel lifted one dark blond eyebrow and toyed with the hem of the dusky purple fabric. "They're much more comfortable than those scratchy low-thread-count ones from the five-pack your brother so graciously provided me with. I could take them off, though, if you'd prefer…"

"No," said Sam quickly, as the angel's fingers reached toward the waistline. "You're fine. I mean they're fine. On you. It's fine if you wear them. Just keep them on, please. And put this on too." He grabbed a gray, hooded sweatshirt off the back of his chair and tossed it at the angel, who caught it deftly. "I'm going to get dressed," he added, grabbing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt for himself and turning back towards the bathroom. He emerged again a minute later to find the Archangel still there, though thankfully dressed and sitting cross-legged on the grey bedspread.

"Morning, Sammy," he said brightly, as though nothing at all out of the ordinary had happened.

"Good morning, Gabriel," said Sam warily. He was annoyed at the angel for his brazen intrusion into his personal space, and still more than a little flustered, but his annoyance and embarrassment were overpowered by his desire to take advantage of the opportunity to talk to Gabriel, hopefully without the Archangel vanishing on him. He sat down next to Gabriel on the bed, making sure to leave several inches between them. "Any luck?"

Golden eyes blinked back at him. "I dunno," said the angel cheekily. "I guess that depends on yo—"

"With stopping Amara," said Sam, rolling his eyes. "Any luck finding a way to stop Amara?"

"We're working on it," said Lucifer shortly. Then, immediately changing his tactic, he pouted. "What, don't you trust me, Sam?

Not really, thought Sam, especially lately. And since when do you call me 'Sam'? Aloud he said, "of course I trust you, Gabriel. I, uh, actually wanted to apologize to you." The Archangel's eyebrows rose toward his hairline. "I should have known better than to listen to Lucifer, and I'm sorry you got dragged into it."

"Oh, well," said Lucifer, biting back a grin and plastering an appropriately 'I'm hurt but I'm pretending I'm not because of my pride and your touching apology' look on his face, "That's alright, you didn't know. And some good may have come out of it after all."

Sam gave him a strange look; and he thought he had been impersonating his baby brother so well. "I don't see how," said the hunter. "We're in the same spot we were before we went to The Cage. And we probably both relived some things there that we'd rather forget." He chanced at glance at Gabriel; either the angel was finally going to open up to him or, the far more likely scenario, he'd tell him to fuck off.

"Why do you say that?" said Lucifer cautiously. How much had Gabriel shared with the overgrown Winchester?

Sam shifted uncomfortably under the angel's intense, golden gaze. "Well, I know I did," he said, shrugging. "I can only imagine the things he must have said to you."

"No," said Lucifer softly. "You really can't." He pulled his knees up to his chest, dropping his voice even lower, so that Sam had to lean in closer in order to hear him. The soft-hearted lug obviously pitied his pathetic little brother, and the fallen angel figured he'd milk that for all it was worth. "Lucifer is…" he shuddered dramatically and hid his face, as though he couldn't even bring himself to say what Lucifer was. Unconsciously, Sam shifted closer to the apparently anguished angel, and Lucifer turned limpid, golden eyes on the tall hunter, really getting into the wounded Gabriel act.

"There is no way you could possibly understand the relationship between me and my brother," Lucifer said softly. "What he was to me, what I was to him, what I did for him," as he spoke, his voice began to rise in both volume and intensity, feigned anguish overtaken by genuine indignation. "Do you know what it's like, Sam? To never be truly appreciated? To give and give and give, to people who only take and take and take? What we had was perfect, and then he had to go and ruin everything." His eyes flashed angrily and Sam started; for a moment he would have sworn they had gone from gold to red. "Millenia of work and sacrifice, disregarded on a whim. And for what?" He narrowed his eyes at the cord hanging around the hunter's neck. "The hypocrisy, the audacity." The angel was shaking now with rage. Sam, misunderstanding the emotion, put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him, and immediately snatched it back, yelping in pain; touching the angel had been like touching a burning coal. Lucifer looked at the hunter as though he had momentarily forgotten he was there.

"You think you and I have something special, Sam," he said, in that same low, heated whisper, attempting to recapture his Gabriel persona. "And maybe we do…" he let his gaze linger over the hunter's towel-dried hair and the muscles showing from beneath the v neck of his t-shirt. "Maybe we do… But you will never understand what happened between me and my brothers, so don't even try."

Sam swallowed hard and nodded, finding himself desperate to be out from under the scorching intensity of that golden gaze, and yet unable to look away. His burned hand rose unconsciously to the feather pressed between the fabric of his shirt and the damp skin of his chest. It felt strangely cool to the touch, soothing the pain in his palm even through the shirt fabric. Lucifer tracked the gesture with narrowed eyes. Then, with an effort, he relaxed his shoulders and placed his hand over Sam's uninjured one.

"I know, I know, you were only trying to help," he said, in a gentle tone that was nonetheless calculated to sting. "But I'm an Archangel and you're a human. I help you, not the other way around." He lifted his hand and trailed a finger down Sam's cheek. "So, no more talk about Lucifer, okay?" He patted the hunter's cheek fondly. "I'd rather move forward than look back, wouldn't you? And don't you worry your pretty little head about what Castiel and I are up to," he added, making what would turn out to be the fatal mistake of linking himself and what "Gabriel" and "Castiel" were up to in the brainy hunter's mind. "When the time comes, believe me, you'll know." The Archangel winked, tapped Sam's nose with the tip of his finger, and vanished, leaving the hunter staring at a slowly rising indent at the center of his bed. Shoving aside the rest of the tangle of emotions that the golden-eyed Archangel increasingly elicited in him, Sam focused on the angry red wheal spreading diagonally across his palm, the connections the angel had just unwittingly drawn for him, and the nagging feeling that something was very, very wrong.

*****Icarus*****

"How long do we have to keep this up for?" Lucifer moaned, lounging sideways on his throne so that his head and feet hung off either side of the imposing stone seat. "Pretending to be Gabriel is boooooring."

Michael surveyed his younger brother disapprovingly over crossed arms. "That depends on how long it takes for your people to find what we're looking for." Lucifer stuck out his tongue from his upside-down vantage point. Michael frowned. "You look even more like Gabriel when you do that."

"Ugh," said Lucifer, finally righting himself with an exaggerated expression of disgust. "Gross. Really, Mikey, I just had lunch."

"Your eating habits are not my concern," said Michael coldly. "The objects of our search are. As is maintaining our cover until we can locate and procure them. If you doubt your ability to do that, simply stay away, rather than continuing to bait Sam Winchester. You have all of Hell to amuse yourself with," he added, gesturing expansively. "How could a puny human possibly interest you?"

"Nothing interests you," Lucifer complained, idly flicking pieces of pocket lint and sweater fuzz at Crowley where he knelt on the floor beside the throne, head bowed. "Besides your 'Holy Mission.' And Heaven help anyone who gets in your way, eh brother dear?"

"You are beyond help, Lucifer, from Heaven or anywhere else. I am working with you out of necessity, and don't pretend your reasons are any different."

"You wound me, brother," said Lucifer, clapping a dramatic hand over his heart. "We used to be so close. Before Gabriel, before Humanity, it was us, just us, Michael and Lucifer, Lucifer and Michael, the inseparable duo." He sat up, swinging his legs down in front of him and leaning forward toward his brother. "We could be that way again, Mikey," he continued earnestly. "Together, nothing can stop us."

Michael regarded his brother with sad blue eyes. "In spite of what you might think, Lucifer, I do love you. I have always loved you, and I will always love you. But you are Satan, and I am Our Father's Most Loyal Son. I deeply regret what has passed between us, but it could have been no other way."

"Oh bullshit," spat Lucifer, flopping back against the tall backrest and glaring at Michael with an expression like a wounded animal ready to strike. "This started long before Dear Old Dad decided to go slumming with the trumped-up apes. You left me behind the second He gave you a modicum of responsibility. You were the Leader of Heaven; I was an angelic babysitter."

"Raphael and Gabriel—"

"Raphael and Gabriel were children," Lucifer spat. "And they had each other, they didn't need me. And I didn't need them. I had you. I was supposed to have you!" He pounded his fist against the armrest of his throne, eyes sparking with red fire.

"Lucifer, control yourself!" said Michael sharply, shooting a pointed glance at Crowley, who still crouched, cowering, on the stone floor of the throne room, attempting to make himself as small as possible. "This is neither the time nor the place for this conversation."

"Maybe not," said Lucifer at length, collecting himself with some difficulty, though a wild glint remained in his eyes. "But we will have it, brother mine, before the end. We will have it. I will make sure of it."

*****Icarus*****

Dean was having no luck with Cas, by any definition. The angel seemed not just immune to his advances, but oblivious to them. If he had had any hopes of seducing answers out of his angelic companion, they were certainly and repeatedly disappointed. That wasn't what was bothering him though, not really. Far more concerning was that his interactions with Cas were increasingly feeling just like that, an attempt at seduction, and a failed attempt at that. Sure, the hunter was still having erotic dreams about his…whatever the fuck Cas was to him nearly every night, but when they were actually in the same room together, it was as though a wall, or an empty void, had replaced that feeling in his gut that he had come to associate with the angel. When he attempted to explain this strange sensation, or rather absence thereof, to his brother, Sam leaned back in his chair, pressed his palms against the illuminated surface of the table, and drew in a breath, which he then released, very slowly. Dean eyed him.

"You think I'm crazy."

"No," said Sam, shaking his head. "I think…I'm feeling the exact same thing with Gabriel."

Now Dean looked at Sam like he was crazy. "You and Gabriel aren't…?"

"No," said Sam, a bit too quickly. "He's just, well, I guess he's my friend." The big hunter shrugged his flannel-clad shoulders. "But we are connected. Maybe not like you and Cas, but…" He motioned to the cord bearing the feather around his neck. "I was just getting used to it going warm whenever Gabriel was around when it suddenly stopped." He fingered the gold-shot feather. "The other day it went cold when he got upset about Lucifer, but other than that, nothing. It just feels like…a feather," he added lamely.

"Go back to the part where Gabriel got upset about Lucifer," said Dean.

"I tried to apologize to him for dragging him into it," said Sam, a bit uncomfortable at the memory. "He pretty headedly told me that I couldn't possibly understand what Lucifer had done to him. Which, I suppose he's right. But then he told me not to worry myself thinking about Lucifer or whatever he, Gabriel, and Cas were up to. Which was a little too close of an association between those two ideas for my personal comfort."

"Huh," said Dean. "I tried to ask Cas about Lucifer the other day, and he almost bit my head off. Said he was offended I would even suggest such a thing as him working with Lucifer. Which I hadn't, actually. I just asked what Lucifer had said to him down there in The Cage. And it was right after we came back from The Cage that they both started acting oddly, wasn't it?" He really didn't like where this train of thought was going.

Sam nodded. "So, what are you thinking? That Lucifer did something to them there? Because I'm sure Gabriel has enough built-up anger against his brother to last several eternities without adding to it."

"And there's certainly no love lost between him and Cas either," said Dean. "But they didn't react that way to mentions of Lucifer before the Cage."

"Well," said Sam. "Gabriel kind of did, but I get your point anyway. Do you think it has anything to do with this lead they're following?"

"Do you mean, do I think Lucifer had something to do with this conveniently timed, top secret, need-to-know basis lead?" Sam's grimace was all the confirmation Dean feared or needed. "What's more likely," he said dryly, leaning back in his chair and stretching his legs out in front of him. "Two completely unrelated suspicious coincidences, or one big angelic conspiracy?"

Sam dragged a tired hand over his face. "Just once I'd like it to be the coincidences."

AN: I should write at my desk more often, I think having my photo with Misha looking on from my left and my photo with Rich looking on from my right is inspiring, lol. I do intend to get another chapter out in the coming few weeks, but until then: Happy New Year! And a special shout out to Fire Chronicle, for their review and encouragement to keep chugging on this story.

-SQ