Title: These times are past—our joys are gone
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Byron
Warnings: AU after season 3; spoilers for up to season 6
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 515
Point of view: third
Prompt: Supernatural, Gabriel +or/ Sam, After Broward County and realizing Sam wasn't going to accept his lesson, Gabriel decides to go and help Sam when Dean goes to Hell.
He waits until the kid buries Dean. He's not a brother now, but he was one for a long time, and he knows that if he steps in too soon, all that rage and despair will turn on him - and he can survive it, no question there. But the kid? He'll burn himself out.
Dean shouldn't be buried. But he watches the kid dig the hole and put his brother in the ground, and he watches the kid drive away in his brother's jacket and his brother's car, his brother's necklace around his neck, and then with a glance, he incinerates the corpse but leaves the box untouched.
What's dead should stay dead. And the kid will kill him if he ever learns, but, well.
Dean wouldn't want to come back anyway.
.
At first, he watches from afar. Things are happening that shouldn't be, things are moving, and it's all centered on the kid. Sam Winchester.
Coyote knows his brother when he sees him, and Lucifer's print is all over the kid. Just like Michael had been in Dean's blood.
There is nothing angelic or demonic that can keep an angel from slipping inside a human, if given permission.
But Coyote hasn't been an angel in a long time, and he's picked up a few tricks dirtside.
.
"Hey, Sam," he says on the three week mark. The demon's been making her way closer to Sam, and so Coyote decides it's time. He'll kill her when she shows up, but better safe than sorry, anyway.
Sam's drunk, but he looks at Coyote for barely a moment before his eyes widen. "You!" he slurs, lunging for Coyote. "You killed my brother!"
Coyote could smirk, could joke, could turn Sam into a Labrador and keep him as a pet.
Instead he hangs limp in Sam's grasp and says, "Things are happening, kid. I need you sober."
Sam's sober, but his hands tighten on Coyote's shirt. "What do you want with me?" he demands. Coyote can feel the power rising in him.
Azazel's blood. Lucifer's vessel.
Dean's brother. Dean's amulet around his neck, the tiny little charm that can summon the greatest of all things, if used right.
"There's a war coming, Sam," Coyote tells him softly. "And, I'm sorry, I really am." He doesn't say, You'll understand, one day, why your brother couldn't be here for this.
Yeah, Sam'll understand. But he won't forget, and he'll never forgive, and Coyote loves his siblings, his brothers and sisters, he really does. But if they don't choose right, he can't save them.
Sam's not going to burn down the world. Once he's back on his feet, back fighting-fit, he's going straight for Heaven, and he's going to destroy everything that gets in his way.
Gabriel left because he didn't want to hurt his family. His family never felt the same.
Sam's brother is dead and he's not coming back.
Coyote lets his wings out and wraps them around the kid as the kid collapses, sobbing.
"I'm sorry," Coyote says again.
.
(In Hell, Dean screams for his brother and Alistair laughs.)