Song: Long, Long Way From Home by Foreigner

G'day

Get pumped bc u know who's pumped that's right mE

Special thanks to everyone who's reviewed, followed and favourited so far.

And a bit of info for you, I researched for five seconds and it said that one drachma was worth about 25 US dollars. So Dean was asking for 1000 to 1250 for the statue. And Ari's an idiot.

I was rewatching s1 to get some Dean-ism's down and, oh god, I MISS SEASON ONE SO MUCH. THE COLOURING, THE MYTHOLOGY. THE HAIR.

So, if you have the time, even a one word review would be very much appreciated :)

Acrisius was a mortal man doomed to a mortal life. His fine features washed away with age and his intellect crumbled as he neared the pointy end of his life. He'd once been a keen philosopher, a highly regarded mathematician, but none of that mattered anymore. Now he was the off end of the other vegetables running around, the old men screaming warnings at would-be heroes and chasing young maidens around like they had any chance at remarrying.

Acrisius had been a wanderer for most of his life. Someone had murdered his family, so he did a bit of killing back. To balance the scales. He hadn't thought that anyone would see it as murder, rather than vengeance, but apparently people were more attuned to death and destruction when it happened to a family of small children and pregnant wives.

So Acrisius had fled and now he walked the world as a nowhere-man, slipping through countries like he was born to run. His sandals wore down and his cloak was well-worn. He had stories of men with three faces and glorious women bathing naked in a stream, their voices so pure and sweet that he'd sobbed, wept, face down into the earth. He had stories of a man with the strength of thirty bulls and a woman who could tell precisely the day you were to die by the brightness of the spark in your eye. He had seen everything.

And now he came to meet his end.

Acrisius knew better than to curse the weather when the rain fell as it did, massive buckets drenching him and the landscape, turning the road into a river and swelling lakes and ponds beyond the limit of their banks. He stumbled around in it and cast angry prayers to the gods, the god of the Skies and the god of the Seas. The brothers must have worked together to form this, this molten, frothing ugly storm that ripped away at him and at the mountains he was surrounded by.

The sky was already dark and Acrisius let out a cry of despair, hand over his eyes to keep the drenching water out, when the sun began to sink and the world began to darken further. If he didn't make it to the next town before nightfall, he would be lost in the storm. Acrisius was not young and he was not strong by any means. If he lingered here, he would catch his death and die, lonely and forgotten on the side of a hill.

He blinked rapidly and then turned, and by chance he saw the entrance to a cave. Letting out a sigh he hurried to it, his cloak wrapping behind him, his sandals slipping on the soft mud that was more water than grit. He fell towards the entrance and caught himself, his hand pressed wide on the stone.

He let out a laugh and turned, facing the way he'd come, stepping further into the cave so that the rain was no longer his to fear. It thundered down and pushed the water onto his gnarled toes, but he didn't fear that. He would back into the cave, light a fire and wrap around himself all he had left in his pack. Perhaps the sheepskin blanket would be wet, but it would be dense and warm.

Acrisius sighed and couldn't help smirk at the clouds that had seemed so dangerous only moments before. The gods could try their best with him, but he had escaped worse than a few raindrops.

Suffice to say, he'd never seen a storm of this intensity before.

Acrisius was so wrapped up in himself that he didn't hear her. She slid along the ground and her scales scrapped the stone and he did not hear her. Her hair writhed like it was caught up in a battle with itself and he did not hear her.

Her fangs slid over her teeth in her hunger and constant pain and the loss of all she'd been through, and he did not hear her.

Acrisius shook his head at his luck and stepped further into the cave and out of the puddle that had been pooling at the entrance. He unstrapped his cloak from around his shoulders and bunched it into his arms.

Medusa stalked forward, her hair snapped and cracked and hissed. She was awful and terrifying and the product of everyone's worst fears. She slipped through the darkness. This was her home. He was an intruder. Honestly. What was she supposed to do?

Acrisius turned and for a few moments he had peace. His eyes were lazily downcast and he was thinking about the fire he was going to light, about the sleep he was going to have.

But then she emerged, a beast from the shadows. The light from outside the cave was dusk filtered through thick cloud, but it was enough for him to see her.

He built up a scream, but it froze in his throat. His limbs tensed and cracked into place. His eyes were fixed unseeingly on hers. Medusa smiled and stroked his quickly greying face.

The last thing that man saw, the murder, the child-killer, the nomad, was Medusa's bright yellow eyes and the snakes of her hair snapping down at his cheeks with all the tenderness of a mother to her newborn.

And then the snakes hissed in unison, gathering back and he saw no more.

Medusa hovered around her new statue, the stone of the man's body swung hollow and dead around the front of her cave.

It had been long since she'd had company.

She bared her teeth savagely and her hair hissed in agreement.

She slunk off back into her cave, where her sisters awaited her, scaled and snakelike as she was, celebrating already the success of Medusa's newest victim.

Castiel wasn't hiding. No. He wouldn't call it that. He was just...avoiding a certain person. Self-preservation. Biding his time. Because certain people wouldn't be too happy when or if they did find Cas.

That person being his boss. That being because Cas had accidently started a brawl. That being because he wanted to keep his job.

It was all pretty understandable, but Cas felt terrible all the same. The two men had only wanted to know his opinion on which version of the newest warships developed in Athens were better. He'd suggested the latter of the two, not really knowing either.

And then one had leapt up in his victory, and the other had punched him in the jaw.

"What are we hiding from?" a woman's voice asked, perched next to him behind a table.

Cas blinked and recoiled, sizing up the new arrival. It was the flame haired woman from before. The one who'd disappeared without a sound and without warning. The one he'd suspected being a goddess.

Cas swallowed. "Uh...you're-"

The woman smiled in greeting. "You remember! Good, good."

Cas narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"

The woman sobered a little. "I'm no one. I'm here to help."

Cas ran his hand over his eyes. "That doesn't make any sense."

The woman sighed and sat down, moving from her crouch and taking up the rest of the area hidden by the table. "I know. I'm sorry. I could tell you who I was-"

"But Names have power," Cas finished, grave but irritated. Overly dramatic women crawling over to him on the floor when he was supposed to be hiding from his boss wasn't high on his priorities at the moment.

The woman smiled then, small and sad. He felt bad then, for being so dismissive of her. Perhaps she wasn't a goddess, but she still deserved his respect.

"The world is changing, Castiel," she said, slowly and purposefully, like she'd planned it out. "We're on the brink of something..." she trailed off, gazing into the air. "Horrifying."

Cas sat more relaxed into the table. But he was beginning to tense and worry. "Why are you telling me this?"

Red hair brushed against the table leg and caught itself in a few of the splinters beginning to thaw away. She looked at him, mystified. "To warn you, Cas. Because it concerns you."

Cas almost felt ashamed at his surprised. He blinked, not understanding, and then he sat back heavily, hands pressed to the floor. "A...prophecy."

The woman sighed. "Yes. It doesn't focus on you directly. But you will be involved. This will include you."

Cas thought about Rachel and her husband and the life he'd built here. He thought of the waves lapping at the shore and the banners cracking against the wind. His hands began to shake. It wasn't fair. He didn't want this. He wanted to live like a normal person, a farm, a wife, children, normality and happiness. Cas wanted to get up and leave. He didn't want her watchful, hopeful eyes fixed on his any longer. He wanted out and he hadn't even gotten in yet.

Cas's voice was scarily calm when he spoke. "Why me?"

The woman's breath caught and she looked at him, with no regard for anything at all. She looked at him utterly without reservation. And she looked like her heart was breaking.

It made for an odd scene, this beautiful woman with hair like the tip of a flame, eyes large and brown and dire, dressed as though she'd been walking for days with tongues of fire on her sleeves squatting on the floor with a man who had seen better days and would not see any happier ones. A man with tired blue eyes that seemed to pierce through the air, a mouth puckered into a mild smile after years of practise. They sat there, wary of each other and wishing that anything and everything was different.

Why me?

"It has to be you, Castiel," she said, leaning back and staring at the ceiling as if looking through the wood to the blue of the sky, studying it like the philosophers studied stars. "Because you're the only one strong enough."

Cas felt his stomach clench. "I'm not strong enough."

She shrugged and made a move that Cas thought indicated she was ready to get up. "I'm sorry. But you'll have to be."

Cas pushed his hand through his hair and felt so heavy and lost. He wouldn't move, not from that spot. He wouldn't be able to. Not for another 100 years.

"Why did you tell me?" Cas asked, but it was more of a statement, more of a deadened demanding.

She frowned a little. "It's true, I suppose. People shouldn't know their fates. It messes things up."

"Or sets them up," Cas muttered.

She carried on like she hadn't heard him. "Because this cannot come to pass. I can't...I can't sit by idly anymore."

Cas felt his skin fizzle at her words, hairs perking up long his arms. His stomach, first heavy and now churning, thudded along with her words. She had admitted now, hadn't she? That she was old, at least, very old. And important, important enough to have felt like she should have been able to make a difference.

Her hair was not similar to flames, it was flames, and her voice, calm and friendly and, gods, her voice sounded like home.

"I know who you are," Cas said, and his voice was flushed and excited. "You're Anna, aren't you?"

Anna looked over at him and smiled. Smiled like he had unravelled the universe. Smiled like he had proven himself. "Names are dangerous, Cas. Don't forget."

And then Cas blinked and she was gone, like a candle puffed out of existence. He stood, suddenly feeling himself filled with this unrivalled bravery that held him and directed him and pushed him forward.

His boss charged at him, red faced and fuming. It looked like he was moments away from smoke coming out of his ears and his skin melting off his face.

"You fu-"

"Be quiet," Cas stated, defiant. "Don't talk to me like that."

And his boss stopped, stared, blinked and clenched his hands into fists. "Excuse me?"

Cas glared. "I said-"

"I heard what you said, Castiel," the owner mocked, singing his name like it was girlish. Like it was an insult. "I'd just given you a chance to correct yourself, you slimy ass."

Cas blinked and glared. He didn't blush and he didn't back down. Anna. The name filled him with strength and he felt the grips of reality melt away. Here he was, a character in a prophecy, a mortal who'd spoken with gods; and here was his superior, fat and stupid and losing the best years of his life.

"Well," Cas said calmly, fixing his gaze to all those in the tavern who had stopped and were staring at him. "I quit."

There was a shocked silence. Quit? Work? At this sort of time?

"Yeah," Cas nodded decisively, as if he was answering their unanimous unasked question. "I quit."

And then, without looking back, the young man with the brilliant blue eyes, richer and kinder than any others you might meet flared towards the doorway and didn't look back.

The door swung shut behind him, but not fully closed. It was caught by a man with a bemused expression and a younger brother, a young man with godly blood. A young man who would one day, become Cas's best and most trusted friend.

"What happened here?" Sam asked, glancing around the quiet, second rate tavern with unbridled curiosity.

Dean shook his head, the young man pushing passed him and the determined expression on his face scribbling on the back of Dean's mind. Like it was important. But it couldn't have been, so Dean ignored it. "No idea."

"C'mon," Sam tugged Dean towards the door. "Looks like someone died in here."

Dean followed him out into the sunlight.

Samadriel was the god of travellers and thieves. He was short and thin and overall, quite small.

This was how Dean pictured him, whenever he closed his eyes and went over what he thought each individual god would look like. He hated that he did that, but what could he do? It kind of covered all aspects of his life. It was entangled in everything he did.

"Ok, so we walk home?" Dean groaned, shifting the pack he was carrying from his right shoulder to his left.

Sam nodded grimly. "That's the plan."

Dean sighed and hefted the bag, moving along at a slightly faster pace. Sam had managed to plan it so that they always had a place to stay as they made their way back to their mother and adoptive father.

"Wait, all the way back?" Dean demanded.

Sam didn't honour him with a response. He just glared.

"I am a fucking demigod," Dean muttered. "I should be, I dunno, carried."

"Tame the Pegasus or something," Sam suggested airily.

Dean gave him a look. "Wow. Great idea Sam. Any other really good ones to share with the class?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "You're the one complaining about walking, man. Not me."

"Yeah, well," Dean trailed off after that running out of things to say.

"So, what are we gonna do to pass the time...I Spy?"

"What the hell is 'I Spy'?" Dean asked shrewdly.

Sam smiled slyly. "I just made it up."

Dean gave his little brother a look. "Wow. Nice one, Sam."

Sam's smile morphed into something more genuine and easy. "Yeah, thanks."

"So..." Dean started begrudgingly. "How do you play?"

Sam looked around them at the farms and the other travellers that surrounded them. The road they were on was frequented often and while this practically handed them over to the robbers who'd very much like to steal all the drachma they'd tried so hard to collect, it also meant that there were more people for the said thieves to busy themselves with. It was unlikely they'd mess with two cheaply clothed boys when there were other more ideal victims trailing along in the same direction.

"I Spy with my little eye-"

"My little eye?" Dean demanded.

"-something beginning with...f."

Dean glanced around then back at Sam. "Wait, seriously?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. Seriously."

"Dude, come on," Dean gestured around them. "Farm. Obviously."

Sam looked quietly put off. "Damn."

Dean shook his head. "Seriously?"

"Your turn," Sam stated, ignoring Dean's question.

Dean let out a breath of air. "Right, uh...I spy with...no I refuse to say that-"

"Hurry up."

"Keep your toga on. Sheesh. Ok, something beginning with...T."

"T?" Sam asked dubiously, looking around. He narrowed his eyes and looked carefully.

Dean made an impatient noise at the back of his throat. "C'mon, it's not hard dude."

"T...raveller?"

"Give the boy the golden laurels," Dean grinned.

Sam smirked at that. "Ok, so, I spy with-"

"I'm interrupting you right there, because you sound ridiculous."

"Fine. Whatever. Ok, something beginning with...Ω."

"Oh-Meg-a," Dean sounded it out, glancing around musing over the clue. "Hmmm."

After a few moments, an overexcited Sam choked out, "Give up?"

Dean snorted. "You wish."

There was a companionable silence as Dean kept looking. Then it struck him and he gave Sam a look.

"Really, Sam?"

Sam shrugged, already sensing defeat. "What can I say? There isn't that much to work with."

"Sky," Dean stated. "Out of everything, you choose sky."

"Hey. I'm an opportunist."

"Uh, you're an idiot."

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

"Uh, hi," both brothers started and turned towards each other instinctively when a new voice called out. They gathered themselves quickly and looked at the newcomer, just another dusty traveller walking along a long, dirt road.

Dean's stomach flipped but he fought to control it. He gazed, astounded at the man in front of them. Surrounded by the hills perhaps, and the bulk of the men walking passed them...but no, it was so identical.

The man, he looked exactly like the way he envisioned Samandriel. The god of thieves and highways and travellers...it couldn't be...but it had to be...

"Uh, hi," Sam answered, giving an odd look towards his older brother that wasn't missed by Dean and addressing the stranger where Dean normally did.

"I couldn't help overhearing..." the man said, gesturing to the road and falling into step with Sam. "You sound like you have more interesting conversation than the last people I was with."

Dean regathered control over himself, immediately suspicious of the newcomer. "Yeah, so, why the hell have you decided to talk to us then?"

Sam shot him a pained look, a Oh my gods Dean you're so embarrassing be nice oh black day this is why we can't have nice things downward mouth and tightened eyebrows. Dean shot him a really you're going to trust a man you've never met nice one Sam before turning back to the newcomer, the god look-alike missing the second long exchange.

The traveller looked like he understood he'd trod on a few toes and backed off slightly, a wary tiredness crossing over his features. "No, no, he's right. Sorry. It just gets pretty lonely out here."

Sam seemed sympathetic but Dean wasn't buying it.

"Do you travel often?" Sam asked, his instinctual politeness kicking through.

The man nodded. "I deliver messages for the king of Athens."

Dean gave him a once over, starting to feel his head hurt. "You're a messenger. Seriously?"

"Why?" the man asked, an odd sort of urgency and intensity suddenly come over his features.

"Whoa, chill dude," Dean said. "Just seems like an...odd fit."

The man shook off the oddness and laughed in agreement. "I know. I mean, guys like me, we should at least be smart, right? Like there's you athletes and then there's just little old me."

The praise reddened Sam's cheeks so Dean decided to take it from there. "Yeah, ok, so you decided to be a messenger?"

"What can I say?" the man sighed. "I had a crappy guidance counsellor."

Despite Dean's misgivings, the man travelled with them and Sam enjoyed his company. He was bright and cheerful and managed to find words other than the three things that surrounded them when they introduced him to I Spy. He even managed to get them stuck on one. (S for Sandal) and guess the ones they thought were clever. All the talk about him being forced into messaging seemed a little off to Sam at this point. Other than being pretty inquisitive and quick to pick up on things (he seemed to know instinctively that Sam and Dean were brothers. He told them that he had brothers of his own that had curious character and Dean had an odd look about him for almost an hour after that) and he talked to Sam about the elements and mathematics and philosophy.

Every time he got too close to something big or otherworldly clever, he'd change the topic.

Sam thought about the man and about Anna and about the way his eyes sometimes looked into Sam's, like he was saying honestly, I can't make it any more obvious.

But with Dean there and other travellers swarming about them, the pace picking up as the afternoon wore on, Sam couldn't say anything.

"What's your name?" Sam finally asked, smiling as though he didn't care what the answer was.

The man smiled like nothing was amiss. "Sam."

"Really?" Sam asked, running the name over and over in his mind. "Same here. And that's Dean."

Dean flashed a smile. "That's the name, don't wear it out."

Sam. Samandriel?

"Will you be stopping at the inn in the next town?"

"In inn," Sam(andriel?) said smiling.

"Yeah," Dean said, rolling his eyes.

The perhaps god of travellers didn't see or wasn't offended by Dean. "I am."

"Good," Sam smiled like he meant it, and in a way, he did.

"I'll throw our stuff up," Dean told him, taking Sam's pack off his younger brothers shoulders and dragging the two up the hall towards the room they'd managed to get for the night in the Inn at the edge of one of the towns Sam had planned for them to visit on their way home.

"Alright," Sam said, glancing up and watching as Dean lifted the two with him as he walked up the stairs.

As soon as his brother disappeared, Sam turned to the Traveller and stared, hostile and threatening and Dean down at him.

"Who the Hell are you," Sam demanded. "Really?"

The traveller looked at him without surprise or fear. "I'm Sam. Or Samandriel, if you're my mother."

"Samandriel," Sam echoed, lost, stepping back, all the fire he'd rushed with left in the truth behind his assumptions. Then he narrowed his eyes. "Why should I believe you?"

Samandriel shrugged. "Don't. I don't care."

"Why are you here, Samandriel?" Sam demanded, dropping his voice and glaring at the god. "Why can't you all just leave me alone?"

Samandriel looked a little caught on that, then he closed his eyes and sighed. "Anna. Of course."

Sam was taken aback and then worried for the goddess that had payed them a favour. "You're...she won't be punished, will she?"

"What?" Samandriel asked, like that was the thing furthest from his mind. "No. No, no, of course not."

Sam felt tension he didn't even know he was holding dissipate when he heard those words. Then he grew cautious again.

"Why are you here? Why are you following me and my brother?"

Samandriel sighed. "Anna must have told you all about the prophecy already, so you know all about that. I'm here to warn you. You cannot avoid this. The Fates have decreed it and so must it be."

Sam shook his head. "I'm not leaving my brother alone and doomed up here."

"I'm sorry," Samandriel said, and though he seemed apologetic, he also looked disconnected and uncaring about the situation as a whole. "But it will come to pass. Free Will is an illusion."

Sam felt uncomfortable. An illusion? Every strain of spontaneity, every choice, ever whim was the blocks of some master plan? Did he have no say in the roads his life took, that his brother's life took? Why wasn't he allowed to save him? Why wasn't he allowed to be given a chance.

It felt childish to be asking questions like that, but Sam couldn't help it. He remembered sitting on the boat and swearing that he was going to save everyone.

I'm gonna save everyone. I'm going to save everything.

"Anna doesn't think so," Sam attempted.

"Anna means well, but she's an artist and a poet and, above all, an optimist," Samandriel informed him. "She can't know how...iron clad all of this is. It'd been written for eons before your birth. The world has been planned."

People with destinies shouldn't make plans, Sam thought suddenly, not sure where the thought came from. But no, he would save Dean. Because he had to. Because he'd sworn he would. Because he'd looked out to the ocean, set his jaw and decided.

"Look," Samandriel seemed suddenly a lot more morose, a lot more humanised. He looked at Sam and saw a suffering brother and he could feel himself as Sam. It was unnerving, the world suddenly cold and big and terrifying in the shoes of a mortal. Empathy. That was what they called it, when you walked the world in someone else's shoes. Gods were not meant to feel empathy. "Try. But it's fruitless, Sam. There is no way to avoid this."

Sam looked down at his feet and refused to meet the gods eye.

Samandriel felt an urge to step forward and place his hand on Sam's shoulder. He slapped it away and reminded himself of his place. "I'm sorry."

Sam looked up and for some reason, he smiled. He didn't know where he found it, this smile. Perhaps it was involuntary or perhaps it was the gods remorse. But Sam smiled.

"You're wrong," he said, and Samandriel knew that the world was lost. "I will find a way."

The god looked at Sam sadly. "Farewell then, Sam Winchester. Enjoy Asphodel, won't you?"

And Sam blinked and the god was gone, nothing more than a memory, a fleeting blip on the radar of eternity.

Dean hunkered down almost immediately after that, yawning and complaining loudly about the lack of good bedding in Inn's these days. What with the economy in the state it was.

Sam forced himself into good spirits and joined Dean.

Dean glanced around and frowned. "Where'd Sam jr. head off to?"

Sam shrugged. "He said something about Fate and then ran off." Well, it wasn't exactly a lie, although Sam wouldn't call just vanishing into thin air 'running off'.

"Right," Dean smiled wryly. "Good riddance. He looked shifty. And familiar. Had we met him before?"

Sam shrugged again. "He was a messenger. Maybe he visited the castle a few times."

Dean relaxed and Sam wondered who he thought he was. "Oh, yeah that must be it."

Sam couldn't help himself. "Why?"

"He..." Dean scratched at the stubble he'd been beginning to grow in the past few years. "He just looked exactly...nah, it's stupid."

"No it's not," Sam automatically denied.

"Uh, ok," Dean said. "He just looked exactly how I imagined Samandriel, you know, messenger god of travellers and thieves?"

"Did he?" Sam heard that his voice was tight, but maybe it was his hammering heart or constricted lungs, because Dean didn't seem to notice anything.

"Yeah," Dean nodded. "Weird, right? Alright, who out of all the idiots at the bar should be challenge to dice?"

"The drunkest one," Sam responded easily.

Dean grinned. "I've taught you well, Sammy."

Dean turned his back to his little brother, and Sam's face fell.

Fate swung over them and the clock struck the next hour.

Thus rolls around the end of chapter 3.

Omega is the first letter in the ancient greek word for sky according to wiki-answers, so don't hold me to that.

Anna: Hestia

Samandriel: Hermes

Sam/Dean: Perseus, Theseus etc.

Acrisius is a made up dude who sounds like a bit of a dick to be honest.

DEVIATIONS FROM ACTUAL MYTH: Character names/Athens in crisis/curse langauge (someone needs to tell me when 'fuck' originated)/Big Heroes Destined for Great Things playing I Spy like a pack of idiots