A/N - Many apologies for the length of time between posting chapters.
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"The only heaven I'll be sent to is when I'm alone with you." Hozier, Take Me to Church
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Pinching his temples, Sam groaned, "My brain hurts."
"Do you need anything?"
His moan had been expelled believing he was alone, but he'd temporarily overlooked angelic hearing abilities. The younger Winchester stretched his legs under the library table. He looked up from his laptop and a long heavy ledger with a tilted smile. Gadreel was drying his hands on a dish towel, standing under the arch between the library and the war-room. Sam took a beat for an admiring gaze; tall erect carriage ready to move on Sam's say, how he had rolled up the sleeves of his borrowed brown shirt with white buttons, how his green eyes had softened in loving concern.
"I'm good."
"Is there anything I can do?" Gadreel offered, settling the towel over the back of a chair as he approached.
Wondering if the angel could be bored with mundane chores, Sam huffed widening his grin. He used his right hand to shove out the next chair. "You could keep me company?"
"Gladly." Gadreel dropped into the offered seat.
There was something comfortable about having his angel present by Sam's side. After sparse moments of silence, Gadreel cleared his throat and swept a hand over Sam's papers.
"Do you wish to divide your load?"
Sam shook his head. "Just got this one on the agenda today." He tapped the open page, making a jocular comment. "I'm starting to think the Men of Letters had a worrying obsession with cataloging and recording every freaking thing."
"This was their purpose." Gadreel remained in serious mode.
Internally Sam rolled his eyes, knowing the angel hadn't intended droll sarcasm.
"This ledger documents arcane texts that the Men of Letters succeeded in acquiring and ones they wanted to get their hands on …" Sam paused to concern how to shorten a very long story, "It was completed by Cuthbert Sinclair."
Gadreel nodded his interest.
"He was Master of Spells until they kicked his ass out for being seriously twisted and dangerous. It's mostly Latin, which is fine. But when he wants to be a sneaky shit he does chicken scratches in Mandarin." Sam jerked his head towards his note sheets and the laptop, "I'm using the onscreen character keyboard to translate the Chinese."
"You are leaving no stone unturned." Gadreel's close mouthed half smile communicated his comment as admiration.
Overleaf Sam's research met a promising stumbling block.
"Can you read this?" Sam's heart picked up pace. He blew a subtle raspberry in an effort to control his inclination to race mentally ahead, imaging a potential clue. Admonishing himself to remain logical and follow any trail of crumbs in a disciplined process, Sam pushed the tome towards his angel, pointing to words in an alphabet which he couldn't quite place. "I can read the Latin above. This page refers to lost texts. And that there says First Murderer, and that's Cain, right? But the description is in something like Hebrew. What do you think, Gad? Can you translate?"
"It is Phoenician." Gadreel stated, drawing his brows together.
"Okay?" Sam hummed, staying patient.
Gadreel stood to lean over the ledger, close enough for Sam to unconsciously touch his sleeve.
"An account of Cain, exiled and damned. The first murder. A spreading evil. A transcription of the original which was lost in the burning of Alexandria's library." Gadreel hummed in thought. "This is promising, Sam. The original may have been contemporaneous with Genesis."
"Alexandria? Didn't that burn, like in the fourth century? I mean, that's pretty historical, and you gotta wonder, how old was the original?"
Sam's questions were rhetorical, but Gadreel seemed to be pondering them.
"Given its nature and language it is unlikely to have been written by or directed by Metatron, which is an advantage, presuming it is veracious. A lot of what is written is untrue."
"Yeah, I get that." Sam tried to quell his rising excitement. "But, this could be a break, and honest to God break."
"Where is the text?" Gadreel asked, turning his head toward the corridor which led to the storage rooms.
"Ah ha," Sam paused, "Look. There's a slip of paper."
Tucked into the seam was a long thin taper-like scrap of paper. Sam read Magnus's scrawl aloud, "Took opportunity to interrogate Father Thompson's demon subject, derogatory about our quest for knowledge but claims, falsely I assume, the Pax Hominibus and Fabula Cain were hidden under Lucifer's Orchard."
Gadreel's expression was crestfallen, as if his emotions had married to Sam's hopes. "The demon spoke nonsense."
"Hang on," Sam broke out a fairly smug grin. "I know where that is."
Gadreel's brows rose, "And will you tell me?"
"Gadreel, my friend, have you ever heard of Lucifer's Crypts?"
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Sam zipped up his coat against the late night chill. Gadreel, unaffected by ambient temperatures, left both his hoodie and leather jacket undone. Their breath created small puffs of dispersing moisture.
"Should we wait for Dean and Castiel? They could join us." Gadreel attempted a repeat of the query he had made before they left the bunker, as they stole the late model Camry, and after Dean's call received on the road that their internet ghost had been dealt with and he and Cas were on their way back to Lebanon.
Sam shook his head. His attention was divided, eyes riveted on the innocuous door that led into the warehouse and down to the crypt. He could help an unpleasant anxiety that entry might spike or call to the newly accessed Grace running through his atoms.
"I don't want…" Sam huffed. He reached for Gadreel's hand. "Lots of crap… I don't want to raise Dean's hopes, he's doing good… better now…. and I don't to bring him back here. I don't want him to witness if I start freaking glowing or some shit when we get in there."
"You won't." Gadreel reassured.
With a sigh, a squeeze of palms and fingers, and a determined first step they moved by the walls still daubed with red spray paint since the last Winchester visit.
"I didn't go in the last time. I stayed outside."
Sam grimaced, remembering how through pure willpower he tried to hold his body together, to keep going despite the trials tearing his cells apart, how Meg and he had a strange moment of bonding. He had a fleeting errant thought that maybe he was a sucker, too forgiving, not that he ever had truly forgiven Meg for all the evil she inflicted on his family, for using his hands to kill, for that nightmare week when she possessed him…. He realized he had slowed his pace and took a steadying breath. Gadreel was looking at him with worried furrowed brows. He reminded himself that Gadreel took him as his vessel for very different reasons. Still, It took an effort of will to retake hold of Gadreel's hand.
"We can come back." Gadreel stopped walking. He turned to face Sam, placing his body before the hunter, halting their progress. "We can find a motel. Go out for a meal. This isn't about Dean and Castiel joining us. It is about being ready. It is about deciding if you want to enter this place."
"I do." Sam protested vehemently. "I'd do anything for Dean. This place bringing up a few bad memories? We've faced a helluva lot worse. Come on."
Sam dodged round, dragging Gadreel forward.
The warehouse was empty, windows boarded over with sheet metal. Sam dug his flash lamp out of his pocket. Their shoes made echoes on the cement. On the far side interior prefab office areas with broken glass windows overlooked the warehouse floor. The heavy stairwell door hung off its hinges. Someone had chained it with a padlock to the metal doorframe. Gadreel snapped the chain, lifted the door completely and propped it against the damp wall.
"Show off," Sam ribbed lightly, raising the mood momentarily as he bumped against the angel's shoulder.
Down below there was more evidence of token repairs. Rusting joist work held up the ceiling. A new sheet of drywall, opposite an old fire hose, could not completely hide the rubble of a cracked opening. This time they both pulled the obstacle out of their way.
"This is it." Gadreel intoned.
Sam nodded. He could see a vaulted chamber below.
"I don't get it." Sam commented as he extended his leg over the rubble. "How is all this stuff still here? Why wasn't it raided? Did maintenance just drywall over it? Weren't they curious?"
Gadreel quirked his brow, pointing to a few crudely painted symbols and then at some less dusty blank shapes on the surfaces. "You must be seeking the crypt to see it, however it does look like someone was covetous."
"Crowley." Sam grumbled. "Took what he wanted once we were out of his frigging way."
The crypt's contents had certainly been disturbed. Goblets, urns, and boxes lay on their sides. A few daggers littered the floor complete with more recent cobweb decoration.
Sam huffed, pushing his hair back with his hand, "Crowley coulda got his mitts on the text."
Gadreel seemed to consider Sam's comment, as he moved to examine the remaining items on a table against the wall, picking up and discarding boxes that Sam suspected would've made his Dad's curse box collection look like kindergarten collectables. "Your brother did not bear the Mark of Cain when you discovered this place, correct?"
Sam nodded from his curved position, checking the floor, under the central table, and in corners for anything book-like or book container like. Realizing Gadreel could not see him, Sam responded, "It was before… while I was doing the trials."
With a rueful head shake, Gadreel beckoned him close, "… which damaged you so much," A closed mouth exhalation through his nose and the angel had a hand placed on Sam's lower spine drawing the hunter close. They stood side by side so Gadreel could look at three jewelry box sized heavy dark wood boxes with sigil inscribed metal banding.
"Those?" Sam asked with a strange sort of trepidation and disbelief that they might just have found what they were looking for.
"They contain papers." Gadreel pointed at the Enochian inscriptions. "They are not warded per se. These are warnings not to defile gifts left in tribute."
"Don't touch Lucifer's stuff?" Sam half laughed. "Okay, go ahead."
Sam reached for the nearest one. Inside was a single thickly wrapped scroll of parchment with a wax seal. He pulled it apart and unwound the beginning. Once more he was faced with an unfamiliar alphabet written suspiciously rusty blood colored ink. Glancing over to his partner, he saw Gadreel's nose wrinkle in disgust.
"That," the angel virtually sneered at what Sam was holding, "is a record of demonic tributes."
Sam let the scroll fall to his feet. His hands felt filthy. He stooped a little to wipe them on his jeans.
"This rolled calf-skin however," Gadreel's slight smile gave the game away, "is the transcription we seek."
"We got it." Sam grinned. Without forethought he leaned in to give Gadreel's cheek a victory kiss.
The angel preened and tilted the ancient document for Sam to have a glance. He could see the text was faded but legible for those who knew Phoenician. As Sam perused the arm's length scroll for signs of missing or damaged parts, he noticed from the corner of his eye that Gadreel's other hand snaked onto the table surface to carefully sweep cobwebs and piled dust from a pale smooth rounded rock.
"What's that?" Sam asked, his curiosity piqued enough to draw his gaze away from their prize.
Angelic sheepishness wasn't something Sam had much experienced but Gadreel was managing a good impression of it.
"What is it?" He repeated.
"I would like to take this with us." Gadreel stated with gravity.
Sam nodded and waited for an explanation while Gadreel practiced some sort of avoidance tactic by pocketing the stone and moving quickly to roll up their ancient story of Cain.
"Can I see it?"
Gadreel licked his lips. He drew the stone from his pocket. It fitted neatly into the hollow of his palm. Sam could see veins of quartz in the milky surface. It looked so smooth that it begged to be touched. He extended his pointer finger to stroke it like a newborn puppy or the warm edge of Gadreel's bottom lip.
Gadreel's fingers folded over it, and as they did the little rock seemed to emit a faint glow, or maybe it was the angel's own power.
Sam experienced a pinch of hurt, illogically feeling that he was not being trusted.
"Wait, Sam. Let me explain." Gadreel stepped nearer, so once more they were almost pressed together. "This is a Grace Stone. This particular one is Haniel's creation, I believe from the crystalline structure. It is also ungiven."
"It's what now?" Sam asked, fascinated by the slow unpeeling of his partner's fingers.
For a moment both of them simply admired the beauty of the rounded stone.
"You have heard of Watchers?"
Sam nodded, "I've read the lore."
"They defied our Father. Took human mates, produced nephilim…" He winced, "… some were imprisoned near my cell. I would hear them, discussing their offspring, their doings on Earth. Some regretted, some were brazen in their defiance until Naomi took them away, and some were heartbroken, and some of the heartsore had secreted their Grace Stones and would use them until time and death caught up with their humans and their nephilim."
Sam shifted his weight uncomforted by Gadreel's melancholy tale. The victims, the wronged, and the evil-doers could not be defined in black and white. Did those long dead women willingly bear nephilim children? Was it so wrong for those Watchers to have relations with humanity? Isn't that what he and Gadreel were doing now? Nephilim were said to be abominations, but Sam had been called the same by the first angels he met. On top of all that, reading between the lines, Sam picked up that the jailed Watchers hadn't been sympathetic to Gadreel.
"Why would you want something associated with them?"
"Look at it, Sam," Gadreel placed the ivory shaded quartz into Sam's palm.
It was warm, plain, attractive, and somehow it tugged on his heartstrings with an emotion he associated with seeing Gadreel smile, or be relaxed, or with the simple contentment the angel wore after watching the night sky through the bunker telescope.
"It feels of you." Sam said with a hushed wondrous tone.
"Already," Gadreel hummed. "A Watcher would gift one to their chosen human. The quartz atoms could be set to transmit, to vibrate, with the frequency of the angel's grace. It could comfort the human in times of solitude, and could alert the Watcher if their mate was in danger."
Sam snorted. "So an ancient baby monitor cum pager cum Bat-signal?"
"I do not know why you would wish to signal a bat, but yes that it an appropriate approximation." Gadreel's hand covered Sam's, enclosing the stone between them. "I would give it to you."
"You're not going anywhere." Sam insisted before he could hear of being parted.
The rock warmed to body temperature, and hints of light seeped from between their fingers.
"It is responding to us both." Gadreel said in awe. His wide beaming smile lit up his eyes in the gloomy crypt.
Before Sam could have any sort of mini-freak-out about his/Lucifer's grace mingling with Gadreel's in this sort of eternal love rock, the angel pressed their lips together, and Sam responded. He closed his fist over the stone, and used both arms to wrap around Gadreel's shoulders, deepening their embrace.
"This is a good day." Sam whispered when they parted for air. They had their prize and a freaky little Grace Stone to mark their partnership. Sam would take it as a win and process or melt down later. For the moment he could admit, "I like this," encompassing both the strange love stone and having each other to hold.
The sound of a throat being cleared loudly behind them put Sam on immediate high alert. He pulled his blade from his thigh holster, simultaneous to Gadreel dropping an angel blade from his sleeve. They swiveled to face Crowley.
"Well if it isn't Moose and Not Moose cavorting in a dingy lair? Anyone would think you guys were up to something?" The demon rocked back on his heels, "Time's up. My thief alert pinged. So hand bloody over whatever you've got shoved down those giant pants of yours. Now!"
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