Gabriel was suddenly aware of cold; icy, biting cold, all over his body.
And didn't that just send the alarm bells triggering all across his brain? He was an archangel; he wasn't supposed to feel things like a human. He was used to having a constant thrum of warmth inside that came from his Grace. But even as he searched internally for the comforting heat that usually blazed inside him, he realised with a pang that it wasn't there. Somebody had sealed it away from him.
And that was when confusion and mild irritation morphed into fear; genuine, gut-wrenching fear. He had no idea how to survive as a human. It was Castiel that had know-how however limited in that field, not him. Sure, he'd been on earth for far longer than Castiel, and yes, he might have been pretending to be human for a lot of that time, but it has been just that; an act. He hadn't actually been cut off from his angelic power during that time. And if his younger brother's experience was anything to go by, the idea wasn't a very enjoyable one.
His eyes flew open – when had he even closed them? – and started. The bleak, dusty interior of the house had gone to be replaced with nothing but blue. He blinked several times, but the image didn't change. As he turned his head to spin in a circle, a trail of bubbles followed his movement. He froze, watching as each one either popped or began to drift lazily upwards. Brain jamming all functions in his utter bafflement, Gabriel turned his head up to be greeted with the rippling surface of water. He inhaled, just to check, and found breathing came completely naturally to him.
Okay, he decided, it was time to think methodically; make a list of what was happening and try to work around it. He was in some sort of expanse of water, he was cut off from his Grace but he was having no issues breathing underwater. He could feel his heartbeat thumping away rapidly in his chest, but he wasn't panicking. This was nothing to panic over.
That was what he was in the middle of saying until he tried to kick his legs and found something that just tipped him over the edge.
When his body didn't move other than to jerk awkwardly, Gabriel glanced a look down at his body and every conscious thought he'd had up until that point slammed headlong into a brick wall. For one thing, he was naked. His usual shirt and jacket had gone, leaving his pale chest exposed to the icy bite of the water. Around his waist was what looked – and felt – like a strand of murky green seaweed. Tucked into this just beside his vessel's jutting hip bone was a thick rock, carefully sharpened to a cruel point at one end.
But it was everything below that belt of seaweed that was monumentally wrong. Instead of seeing his vessel's short legs, there was a tail. It was a beautiful shade of mossy green, slim and with every scale shining. Two thin, delicate looking fins spread out at the bottom, a gentle shade of lime in colour. Gabriel felt his jaw drop open as he experimentally thrust forwards with his waist, and watched as the tail followed the movement, too.
"There you are! We lost you for a second!"
Gabriel was so highly strung at that given moment, it was a miracle that he hadn't gone for the stick of rock tied to his belt. Luckily however, before blind panic could win over, his common sense had informed him that he knew the speaker. Slowly, he spun around and felt a rush of relief hit him, but this was quickly replaced with the same crippling confusion that had been with him ever since he'd woken up.
Floating just behind him in the water were Castiel and Balthazar but with one major difference; they too, both had tails instead of legs. Castiel's was a lighter blue than his eyes, the scales beautiful and shimmering in the soft turquoise water. Balthazar's, like Gabriel's, was more of an emerald green, the fins a wonderful shade of olive. They, like him, wore nothing on their chests, and Balthazar carried a rock similar to his in a second loop of seaweed around his hips.
Before he could move another muscle, Castiel spoke. "I see you are here to await the ship." He paused to gaze at the water's surface above their heads and shrugged. "A little early perhaps, but that is better than arriving too late."
"Ship? What ship?" Gabriel asked, deeply confused. His voice sounded perfectly normal; just as it did when he had last opened his mouth back at the house when he was safely on land. An octave or two higher, perhaps, but he'd like to see someone wake up in his situation that didn't experience even a nugget of alarm.
Balthazar and Castiel exchanged a look during which the darker haired merman shrugged again and shook his head. The blonde then turned back and said, "You're joking, right?" in an amused tone.
"What ship?" Gabriel repeated, beginning to get impatient. He was freaking out, dammit! He needed to know just who the fuck thought it'd be a good idea to screw with him, and get to smiting their sorry backsides. He didn't have time to waste on talking about some stupid ship!
After exchanging another look with Balthazar who only folded his arms over his bare chest, Castiel turned back to Gabriel and frowned. "The ship you have yet to stop talking about? The one you have spoken to us about for weeks? Am I jogging your memory at all, brother?"
For a moment, Gabriel was too stunned for speech. Then, he managed to weakly stammer, "Was that.. Was that sarcasm?" Because, seriously? Seriously?! On top of everything else, Castiel chose now to learn the human idiosyncrasies he'd been trying unsuccessfully to drill into his brain?!
Castiel's head tipped in its trademark tilt, eyebrows furrowing in a way his stoic features didn't normally allow, and his frown deepened. "Not at all." He said in the same derisive tone, but with an underlining of confusion this time. "Not in the slightest."
"Gabriel, what's with you?" Balthazar added, also now looking slightly concerned. "You're acting weird."
"I'm acting weird?!" The archangel cried in disbelief, gesturing wildly through the water towards Castiel, who started. "He's the one that's developed a sense of humour all of a sudden! And I think if the two of you just woke up in the middle of the ocean with a damn tail, you'd be freaking out too! So forgive me if I'm a little off, but this doesn't happen to me often!"
"What are you talking about?!" Castiel was now shouting. "You have been with us all day! You have not 'just woken up' anywhere! And you have always been a merman!"
"What?" Gabriel could only mutter.
"He's right, Gabe." Balthazar now sounded rather scared. "You've not left our sights all day. And we grew up together. Remember?"
"Have you hit your head on anything?" Castiel asked, still sounding tetchy, pointing at his own skull.
"How can he have? We've been with him, and he definitely hasn't." Balthazar argued, scratching a spot on the back of his neck, looking thoroughly perplexed at Gabriel's reactions.
"No." Gabriel replied indignantly. The last thing he could remember was Sam's confused and shocked face as that brilliant light engulfed them all. The next thing he knew, he was floating in the middle of a freezing cold ocean without access to his Grace, had somehow grown a tail and was in the company of two merman brothers who apparently believed him to be somebody else.
"Are you sure?" Castiel pressed, ignoring Balthazar. "Because that would really explain what is happening on here."
"I didn't hit my head." Gabriel ground out through clenched teeth. "There was a light, and -" He trailed off as a thought suddenly struck him. "Hey, have you two seen a hu-" But he suddenly stopped himself. He had only assumed Sam had been pulled into this crazy new world because he'd been holding the hunter's arm at the time, but even if he had, there was no guarantee that he was still a human being.
"Have we seen a hu?" Balthazar echoed, docking an eyebrow and looking as if he was starting to believe Gabriel had smacked his head against something without their noticing.
"A huge person, floppy brown hair and these great, big brown eyes?" Gabriel answered, feeling proud of his quick-thinking.
Balthazar still looked blank but Castiel frowned and folded his arms over his bare chest. "Gabriel, this is far from being amusing now."
"What?" Gabriel asked defensively.
"Yeah, what?" Balthazar said, turning to Castiel.
"Balthazar, he is talking about Sam Winchester." Castiel seemed to ignore Gabriel's question as he directed his answer to the blonde merman beside him instead.
At once, realisation dawned on Balthazar's face. "Oh, that's what the famous Winchester prince looks like? He sounds intriguing. You have good taste, brother." And he winked across in Gabriel's direction.
"You know Sam?!" Gabriel cried, and then realised just what Balthazar had said, and turned to him instead to be met with a teasing grin. "Wait, what?" First of all, prince? Second, why the hell was Balthazar saying he had good taste? What the fuck was going on?!
"Of course I know Sam, Gabriel." Castiel replied sharply, capturing Gabriel's attention once more. "You have only dragged me off to spy on him a million times or so as he travels or from his castle. But I suppose that could be easy for you to forget."
Gabriel fell silent with a speculative frown on his face. At first, his heart had leapt at the mention of Sam. If Castiel knew the younger Winchester, that meant there was a chance of finding somebody from his own real timeline. But what if this Sam was just a further figment in this crazy place, especially if here he was a prince? What if he, like Castiel and Balthazar, looked like his real-life counterpart but was not the being that Gabriel knew? As this thought occurred to him, he felt his mood drop once more. He supposed there was only one way to find out, though, and if it came to it, he'd need to find a way to escape by himself. He was an archangel, after all. No lesser angel was going to keep him imprisoned for long.
Because Gabriel highly doubted that any of the other archangels were to blame for this. Lucifer and Michael, he knew, were still firmly locked in the Cage. He was fairly certain that Raphael was still dead, and that even if he had come back to life in secret, the first thing on his agenda wouldn't be trapping two of his brothers and two hunters in some crazy alternative dimension. And hell, Gabriel certainly hadn't done this. It was definitely an angel's work, though.
"Sam's going to be on that ship, yes?" He asked.
Castiel, who's bad temper had seemingly calmed during Gabriel's minute of reflection, nodded. When he spoke, his voice was back to its usual gruff, authoritative self, but the angry bite had definitely vanished. "Yes. That is why we are out here, despite Father's orders. You were insistent on seeing Sam, and their ship is due to pass right through this place."
Gabriel nodded, although he hadn't really been listening past Castiel affirming his suspicions. The angel behind all of this had chosen to drop him at this specific place, which the version of him in this world had insisted on going to. Clearly something important was on that ship, and Gabriel hoped with everything he had that it was the Sam from his world. Surely, if anyone could figure out what was going on, it was the younger Winchester.
Sam felt something wonderfully soft and comfortable beneath his head and back. It felt like he was floating on air, his every muscle relaxed and at ease. He was being gently rocked from side to side, the motion encouraging him back to unconscious oblivion. There were no awkward springs poking into random parts of his body, no lumpy mattresses causing a thousand and one aches for him to discover upon waking, no pathetically thin, raggedy pillows. He couldn't remember the last time he felt this relaxed; hell, he doubted he'd ever experienced this level of utter contentment. But now that consciousness was beginning to seep back into his sleep-addled brain, remnants of the last moments he remembered came flooding back.
Gabriel berating him for acting like an utter moron. Dean sliding into the room with Castiel only a moment or two behind him. Gabriel's reaction upon seeing his younger brother. The blinding light that Sam could only ever remember belonging to angels. Gabriel lunging at him and grabbing his arm. Where he lay, Sam brushed his fingers against that spot on his arm. It was probably his imagination, but he could have sworn he could feel the ghost imprints of the archangel's strong fingers, like they had been there until moments ago.
The thought of that made him open his eyes. He half expected to be back in their motel room with both Gabriel and Dean sat nearby, cocky grins on their faces as they readied themselves for the hours of teasing that would be sure to follow his fainting fit. That would explain the comfort surely; no matter how much Gabriel would mock him for it, he would ensure Sam was kept as comfortable as possible until he awakened. But the room he found himself lying in was most definitely not the one he'd woken up in that morning.
For starters, the bed he lay on was the furthest thing from crappy that he could imagine. The mattress was soft and springy, and gave way at his lightest touch. There weren't any thin blankets covering him but a single, full duvet covered in a material strongly resembling silk. Several full, plush pillows were perched behind his head, fully supporting him from the shoulders up.
Heartbeat racing, Sam sat bolt upright and stared at his new surroundings. The walls and floor of the room were made of panelled wood, polished and sparkling clean. A desk was pushed against the far wall adjacent to the door, covered with papers and several books. There was a chair directly next to his bed, almost like somebody had been sat there watching him sleep. To his left, just above the bed, was a large window. Sam stared out of it and felt his jaw drop. All he could see was the ocean, stretching as far as it was possible to view, beneath a rather dark, stormy-looking sky.
"What the fuck?" He muttered to himself, sliding out of the bed and discovering only then that he was still wearing the clothes he had been when they'd entered the house. They were a familiar sight, and helped calm his panicking somewhat.
That was until the door burst open and three figures walked in, Dean amongst them. But the other two left Sam's knees feeling like they were about to give out, and he felt the colour drain out of his face the longer he stared at his father and Adam Milligan. Adam, he was fairly certain, was still locked in the Cage with Michael and Lucifer, and his father was supposed to be dead. But yet here they both were, and with Dean standing next to them like there was nothing wrong, all three of them grinning from ear to ear at him.
"Finally. I was about to come wake you up myself!" Adam said, walking forwards and clapping Sam on the shoulder. "Happy birthday, Sam!"
"Wh.. What?" Was all the hunter was able to stammer, staring blankly at the younger man before him.
Dean then also approached, laughing and shaking his head fondly. "It's your birthday today, remember? It's why we had to sail home so quickly? Well, that and you and Ruby didn't really part on the best of terms." Both he and Adam then smirked.
"Boys, leave your brother's love life alone. He's had a tough time recently." John Winchester ordered, and both Dean and Adam's mocking smiles were instantly replaced with the warm, happy ones of before. "Don't worry son. We'll find a suitable princess for you one day. Just enjoy your birthday for now, and don't let thoughts of the last week or so enter your mind."
Sam really couldn't force himself to say anything in response. His entire throat had closed up making speech impossible, and his legs were shaking so badly he was fairly certain he was going to keel over at any moment. It was bad enough seeing his father alive and Adam breathing the free air again, but the whole thing made him suddenly realise with a pang just how horribly alone he currently was.
This world's Dean clearly wasn't the same Dean he knew. That Dean wouldn't have just swept into a room with two men that were supposed to be dead, smiling broadly, wishing him a happy birthday and teasing him about something that had happened with Ruby. And as none of them had mentioned either Gabriel or Castiel, it seemed apparent they weren't anywhere nearby, either. And had his father mentioned something about a princess? It was all one colossal mindfuck, and not something he wanted to just wake up and discover moments afterwards.
"Come on boys, let's leave him to wake himself up. See you later, Sam. Oh, one more thing." John reached past Adam and gripped Sam's shoulder in a vice-like hold, smiling as widely as the other two. "Happy birthday, son."
And then, with waves from both Dean and Adam, all three of them left Sam alone once more. Unable to keep himself upright any longer, Sam collapsed back onto the side of the bed and stayed there, staring at the now closed door.
"What the fuck is going on?"
Dean flew into a sitting position the moment he felt consciousness trickling back into his body. He was lying in a bed with sunlight streaming in through a small window to his left. Staring out of it he saw nothing but fields beneath a forget-me-not blue sky, with a river winding through the green land. The room he sat in was tiny, but there was still a second bed pushed against the far wall. Dean swung his legs out of bed, ready to march straight outside and demand to know where he was, but the movement knocked something out of his lap, falling with two separate thuds on the floor.
He looked, and started. Both his and Sam's phones lay upon the rough wooden boards, their screens shining in the sunlight. Dean hastily scooped them up and tried his first. Remarkably, he had signal so he punched in Bobby's number and pressed the device to his ear. And of course, he should have realised it wouldn't possibly be that easy. The only sound he heard in response was static before the call dropped out altogether. Frowning, Dean tried Sam's with the same result. Then, just in an attempt to find some sort of use for the phone, he tried calling Sam's instead. To his surprise, the spare phone began to blare loudly in his hand.
"Great." Dean muttered to himself, sliding both phones into his jeans pockets. "So I can call Sam. Wherever the fuck he is."
Making up his mind to find his brother and work out what was going on, Dean got to his feet and left the room. He found himself in a narrow landing with only one other door which was firmly closed. He couldn't hear any noise coming from the room beyond, so he made his way down a rickety wooden staircase, finding himself in a spacious room with two bookcases overflowing with books. To his left was a door with a window beside it, through which Dean could see more grassland and a patch of woodland. And walking away from that, his arms full of logs, was Sam.
Dean surged out of the building and ran to meet his brother, feeling marginally better now that he found someone he recognised. But when Sam froze upon spotting him, looked him up and down and then burst out laughing, alarm bells began to ring in Dean's head.
"What's so funny?" He asked defensively.
"Is there some new fashion I've yet to hear about, Dean?" Sam asked, still grinning.
"What?" Dean muttered, then noticed what his brother was wearing. Gone were his flannel shirts, jacket and jeans. Instead, he wore a white cotton shirt with a black belt around his waist, and black trousers that vanished into the tops of shin-high worn boots. "Sam, what's going on here? Where are we?"
Sam continued to snigger, readjusting the way he was holding the logs. "Too long at the ale last night, hm?" Then, still chuckling and shaking his head, Sam walked past Dean and vanished into the house.
Dean was about to follow him and question him further, when he heard a sound that sent every one of his instincts lighting up on red alert.
"Glad to see you're finally awake, Dean."
The hunter spun on his heel and blanched. John Winchester was standing by the door of the house, his arms crossed over his chest and an amused smile on his face. Dean opened and closed his mouth several times, unsure of what to say or do. He had no weapons on him of any kind, and yet John wasn't blurring at the edges or attacking like a ghost normally would. He was dressed similarly to Sam, except he had a quiver of arrows slung over one shoulder and thick-looking leather gloves on his hands.
"Well, don't just stand there, boy." John ordered, inclining his head towards the door. "You've got to come watch Sam while I go into town. And make sure he doesn't blow up the house again." And with that, laughing at what Dean assumed was a joke, John turned and vanished back into the house.
"Yes, sir." Dean found himself whispering on nothing but impulse, his feet automatically carrying him back the way he'd come.
He felt physically sick, but what else was he supposed to do? He'd have to get as much as he could out of this alternate-dimension Sam, but not John. He supposed it was his hunter's instinct mixed in with his own personal feelings, but he just didn't want to talk to his father again if he could help it. It left him feeling hollow and crushed, and brought up a lot of things he'd much rather forget about.
He had to get out of here, but in order to do that, he had to find out just where 'here' was.
Bobby struck the match and dropped it into the bowl, positive the summoning wasn't going to work. He hadn't spoken to the demon in months, but right now he was stuck and he needed help. And Crowley had made it clear the last time they had met that he would always be around to ask for his professional opinion. But Bobby still didn't trust him, understandably, and he'd made that crystal clear.
So it was met with great shock when he turned and saw Crowley standing just behind him, hands placed in the pockets of his dark blazer. "You rang, darling?" He spoke with his usual satirical, thick accent, complete with smirk.
Bobby scowled. "Much as it pains me to say, I need your help."
"Oh? Your boys set the fuse for yet another apocalypse?"
"They've been taken by an angel. Cas and Gabriel, too."
Crowley's eyebrows rose. "That's quite a dilemma."
"Yeah. Last thing I know was they came here." Bobby gestured to the run-down interior of the house around them and Crowley followed his movements carefully. "Then they've vanished just like the others. You sense anything?"
The demon slowly nodded, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. "Definitely the work of another of your feathered friends; this whole place reeks of angel. Let me take a look around."
Before Bobby could say a word, Crowley vanished. The elder hunter huffed out an irritated breath of air, before gathering up the equipment he'd used to summon Crowley. He'd set it up in an upstairs room of the house, remembering what Sam had said about the main room downstairs being where most of the angelic vibes were coming from. He honestly didn't know how or even if Crowley could help him, but he was out of options. He needed the opinion of someone that wasn't human, that could see the angel's movements better than he could, and Crowley was the only logical option as both of their respective angel resources had also vanished.
A moment later, Crowley reappeared. In his arms he held a thick book. Unlike everything else in the house that was coated with dust, the book was so clean it practically shone. Its cover was a rich scarlet, the pages crisp and white. A golden ribbon used to mark your place hung from the underneath of the cover, fluttering in the wake of the demon's transportation.
"What the hell is that?"
Crowley shrugged, handing Bobby the book. It was heavy in his hands and the cover felt strangely warm. "Beats me. I just found it lying in the middle of the floor downstairs. Best guess is the angel left it there."
"Why would it do that?" Bobby asked sceptically.
"You think I understand how their brains work?" Crowley asked with a deep frown.
Bobby mirrored the demon's expression, before opening the cover, unable to prepare himself for what he saw. An intricate, detailed picture was at the very top of the page, and beneath that was ornate, swirling writing, almost like a storybook. But it was the picture that had grabbed Bobby's attention most. It was split in two; one half showed Gabriel looking enraged with what looked like a mermaid's tail, and the other Sam staring out to sea from a window above a bed.
"What the hell..?"
He hastily read the wording beneath the picture; all about Gabriel's interaction with merman versions of Castiel and Balthazar, and Sam's talk with Dean, Adam and his father. Bobby hastily flipped to the next page and saw another picture. This, too, was split in half. One section showed Dean looking both angry and confused while Sam laughed at him, while the other only depicted an elongated shadow along a stone wall, making it impossible to make out exactly what it was. The writing underneath this was much smaller than the previous pages, and described Dean's encounter with his father and brother.
"This is what's happening to them now." The hunter muttered to himself.
"What? You're telling me that book is showing you what's happened? Where are they?"
Bobby shook his head. "I dunno. It doesn't say." As he spoke, he tried to flip to the next page, but the paper wouldn't budge. It was almost as if it had turned to stone, but he could still move the first few pages freely. "And I can't get to the rest of this damn book."
Crowley shrugged and then spoke in an overly serious tone. "Well, that'd be a spoiler."
Bobby glared acidly at the demon, who grinned. "This isn't funny."
"No, you're right. Finding out that your boys and their angels have been sucked into a book," Crowley paused to sneak a glance at the pages, and his smirk grew, "And that one of them is now a merman isn't funny. At all."
Bobby closed the book with a snap and scowled. "Are you going to help me figure this out or not?"
Crowley shrugged. "Only if I'm allowed to laugh. Because darling, this is funny."