Note: Written for the Gabriel Big Bang. Art by kowabungadoodles.

Sam was most definitely not, if anyone cared to ask, sneak-dusting. He wasn't. Really.

He might have waited until he knew that Dean would be gone for at least an hour before attempting to turn Dean's disaster of a room into something vaguely fit for human habitation but that was just because whenever he tried to clean up when Dean was around, Dean followed him around helpfully telling him he missed a spot until Sam threw something at him. Dean never seemed to notice anything about the state of his rooms but Sam liked to step in before ants or mold were summoned.

He was just dusting a lava lamp he was sure Dean had for reasons when a voice sounded from behind him.

"Hey, kid."

Sam spun around, brandishing the lamp threateningly.

The man (okay, probably not actually a man if he managed to just appear like that and didn't they have wards against that kind of thing?) looked amused. "And just what are you planning on doing with that?"

Sam decided to be honest. "Well, depending on what I hear I might bash your brains in."

The man's expression didn't change. "Now that's just rude."

"Some would say the same of barging in somewhere without an invitation," Sam said, not lowering his makeshift weapon.

The man rolled his eyes. "Invited? Please. If anything, I was kidnapped."

"Nobody kidnapped you," Sam said immediately.

"How do you know?" the man challenged. "Do you know how I got here?"

No one had used the bunker before them for years and years. But various supernatural creatures didn't always age the same. "Well Dean and I didn't kidnap you."

"That doesn't make me any less kidnapped," the man complained.

Sam hesitated.

"Well?" he asked. "Aren't you going to unkidnap me or something? Because if not then you're an accomplice."

"Why don't you just tell me what happened," Sam suggested.

The man looked very put-out. "Now you're trying to find out my life story? To do what, find out if I 'deserve' to be rescued or something? Who grills a kidnap victim on their relative morality anyway?"

"You're hardly a normal human victim," Sam pointed out.

"And that's racist."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "The last person who claimed it was racist to mistrust her based on species ended up spending years manipulating me into the apocalypse."

The man gave a long low whistle. "Sam Winchester."

Sam valiantly resisted the urge to groan. This guy knew about that, too, then. Someday it would be nice to not have everyone connect him to the apocalypse.

"Well that'd be a demon, right? Notoriously untrustworthy," the man said dismissively. "I can honestly say that I'm at least twenty percent a better person than your average demon."

Despite himself, Sam's lip twitched. He lowered the lamp slightly but he could quickly bring it back up. "Only twenty percent? That's not a lot."

He shrugged. "I'm widely renowned for my modesty, Sasquatch."

"Or something," Sam muttered. "You're not exactly filling me with confidence here. And I don't know that you're not a demon." He didn't take his eyes off the man as he fumbled behind him for a flask of holy water.

"Accusing me of being a demon?" The man looked more amused than anything else. "Rude."

Sam threw the water in his face.

"More rude."

It didn't appear to bother him. In fact…

"Are you-are you enjoying the holy water?" Sam asked incredulously.

The man shrugged. "Why not? It's very refreshing."

"If you say so," Sam said, not entirely convinced. "So you're not a demon, so you don't feel like telling me how you got here. Do it anyway."

The man gave a theatrical sigh. "Fine. I was in the lamp, you rubbed it, now I'm here. You or this Dean character must have bought or been given the lamp. Or, I guess, you moved in after someone else did. Hence kidnapping."

"Are you sure?" Sam asked politely. "Sounds more like retail."

"Retail?" the man asked, attempting to sound affronted. The smirk on his face kind of ruined the effect, honestly. "You – or somebody else – bought me! That's slavery! You're a terrible person!"

"Okay look, even if it was insensitive to…it's not like I…you know what? That's completely ridiculous and you know it and let's just leave it there."

"Not all that ridiculous, actually," the man muttered.

"Who are you?" Sam demanded. "You know who I am."

"Only because I figured it out," the man countered. "It's not like there were introductions! Thought it wasn't really all that hard."

"Name. Now."

"Fine, fine. You can call me Gabriel."

"Gabriel," Sam repeated, choosing to ignore the fact he was practically telling him that wasn't his real name. "Like the archangel?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Sure, kid. Exactly like the archangel. And the ruler of Kakheti in the ninth century and the ruler of Melitene in the twelfth. Like four patriarchs of Constantinople, an infante of Spain, and a prince of Russia. Then, not even counting all of the various non-famous Gabriels, we've got a lovely little assortment of models, comedians, athletes, journalists, actors singers-"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay, I get it."

"With you, of course, we've got Winchester like the rifle and Sam like the biblical prophet, emperor of the first Bulgarian Empire, creator of the Colt, famous author, founding father, playwright-"

"You know what?" Sam interrupted. "I still get it. You going on does not make me get it any less."

"Get what?" Gabriel asked innocently.

"Just because your name is Gabriel doesn't mean you're the Gabriel."

Gabriel frowned. "I actually insist on being known as the Gabriel. And it doesn't mean that I'm not. In fact, my being named Gabriel makes me more likely to be him than if it wasn't. Assuming that this is my real name, of course, which between us is rather a big assumption."

"I'll keep that in mind," Sam said dryly. "Gabriel works, though." He knew he really should get them focused but he had to ask. "Are you trying to convince me that you're the archangel Gabriel?"

Gabriel smirked. "I highly doubt that I'll ever do that but, hey, you never know."

"I guess I can't say you didn't warn me," Sam muttered. "Now, how did you come to be in Dean's lava lamp? The short version."

Gabriel gave the lamp a considering glance. "Well, it wasn't always a lava lamp. Those were invented, what, in 1963? I guess it changes with the times. And there's really only one thing I can think of to say to that."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "Don't you dare."

Gabriel happily ignored him. "Groovy."

Sam rolled his eyes.

"As for why I'm in there in the first place…I'm a genie."

Sam immediately tensed. "A djinn?"

This time it was Gabriel who rolled his eyes. "Well, no. A genie. Weren't you listening?"

"They're the same thing!" Sam exclaimed.

"Oh, not even! Those muttonheads couldn't grant a real wish if their life depended on it," Gabriel said disgustedly. "All they do is touch you and make you hallucinate either your greatest desire or your greatest fear. I cannot even with these amateurs and if we could save a freak-out where you think I'm one of them and try to kill me or figure out if you've been infected and should kill yourself, I'd really appreciate it."

Sam had had a few run-ins with djinn like that in the past. And Gabriel's lack of visible tattoos meant nothing since he knew they could pass for normal humans. Still, it just seemed too bizarre that a djinn would pass for a normal human only to out himself as a djinn (or, fine, genie) and claim he hated 'fake genies.' Of course, he could just be self-loathing or extremely confused.

Still, who was to say real genies didn't exist? There was more than one kind of djinn he'd encountered, after all. And it wasn't like he remembered meeting and falling prey to a djinn. He didn't think Dean had, either, that time he had fallen under a djinn's sway but at least he remembered how their lives were supposed to be and Sam's world hadn't drastically changed that he'd noticed.

Well, he'd met Gabriel but that was hardly world-altering. Then again, who was to say if he left here his life wouldn't be completely different outside? Maybe he wouldn't have started an apocalypse and Adam's soul wouldn't be stuck in the cage and their friends and family might be a little less dead. But Gabriel knew he knew how to deal with djinn. Unless he was counting on Sam not thinking anyone would be so weird about this whole thing and tricking him that way.

Sam took out his phone and called Castiel.

"Hello, Sam," Castiel greeted him.

"Hey, kind of a weird question, did I still start the apocalypse and is Adam still in the cage and has pretty much everyone I've ever cared about been violently murdered?"

"And people say I've got a thing about non sequiturs," Gabriel muttered.

Castiel took a long time answering. "I…believe so. But I thought we weren't supposed to talk about Adam."

"We're not," Sam agreed. "Too depressing."

"Then why-" Castiel began.

"Just checking something," Sam interrupted. "Don't worry about it."

"Alright," Castiel said, sounding still uncertain.

"I'll see you later," Sam said, hanging up.

"Convinced yet?" Gabriel asked, crossing his arms.

"Almost," Sam replied. "Just…do something genie-ish. But don't get anywhere near me."

Gabriel sighed theatrically and took two steps back. He snapped his fingers and suddenly they were at…what appeared to be the Grand Canyon.

"What the hell?"

Gabriel shrugged unrepentantly. "You asked me to do something genie-ish. And because the thought of groveling turns my stomach and I didn't trust you wouldn't ditch the lamp, I chose to do something magical and not start calling you my master or popping back into the lamp. But if you had said the more palatable-sounding 'genial'…Oh, would I have had fun with that one."

Sam blinked. "But genial means friendly."

Gabriel wiggled his eyebrows. "What's friendlier than a party? What's more of a party than the kind where less people walk away from it than those who came?"

Sam didn't even want to know. He and Dean had dealt with parties like that in the past and a lot less people had walked away from those than were planning to.

"You could have done that when I wanted something genie-ish," Sam said then immediately kicked himself.

Gabriel shrugged. "Yeah, I know, but it wouldn't have quite the same effect. Besides, I'm rather rocking this whole Grand Canyon thing."

That was a relief. "So you're a literal genie, then, are you?"

To his surprise, Gabriel looked highly insulted. "I am not! Only sometimes."

"A literal genie is hardly the worst thing to be," Sam offered half-heartedly.

"As if I will ever be that predictable," Gabriel said, shuddering at the last word.

"Is predictability really the worst thing in the world?" Sam asked.

Gabriel scrunched up his face, considering it. "Well, no. But why accept a bad thing just because it is not the bad thing?"

"Alright, alright, you're not predictable." Sam could have argued the point but it's not like he knew Gabriel well enough to know if he even was and something told him Gabriel's inevitable attempts to prove himself unpredictable would be a hassle. "And I do, tentatively, accept you're not a djinn. So tell me what kind of genie you are."

"Have you ever seen Aladdin?"

Sam nodded.

"I'm just like him, really," Gabriel said. "Except I'm not giant and blue and voiced by Robin Williams. But I'll have you know that I could be."

"So…what?" Sam asked. "You'll grant me three wishes and my only limitations are that you can't kill someone, bring someone back to life, or make someone love anyone else?"

"No, actually you can have as many wishes as you want until you lose possession of the lamp or die and I could do any of those things. And damn have I."

"So nothing like the genie in Aladdin, then," Sam remarked.

Gabriel made a face at him. "Look, I grant wishes, okay? The genie from Aladdin grants wishes. The djinn you've met don't. It's basically the same thing."

Sam snorted. "Yeah, like you and I are practically the same because we both happen to be male."

"We don't, actually," Gabriel corrected.

Sam blinked. "You're female?"

Gabriel shook his head.

"Genderqueer?"

Gabriel started to respond then stopped and tilted his head. "I…suppose that's not inaccurate? I just don't actually have a gender but I needed a form to manifest in this plane and big, blue, and Robin Williams is predictable so here I am."

"Does 'he' work?" Sam asked.

"I respond to most things," Gabriel replied.

"Isn't it a little…unethical to make two people fall in love?" Sam asked awkwardly.

"Nothing to say about the lack of ethicalness in killing people?" Gabriel asked.

Sam shrugged. "Well, I mean, yeah of course but my body count's a little high to go around insisting on pacifism and if people are wishing for you to kill people then it's hardly your fault, is it?"

"That is…certainly one way of looking at it," Gabriel agreed.

"Why did you pause?" Sam asked.

"I didn't pause."

"Yes, you did. Right there, just before you agreed with me," Sam said.

"I had just never heard anybody phrase that, completely true and accurate, part of my job like that before," Gabriel said. "Usually it's all 'oh, you're a monster!' and whatnot. Very dull. It's good that you're not dull, Sam. You'll last longer that way."

"When you say 'last longer', do you-"

Gabriel threw back his head and groaned. "Please don't insist on questioning every little thing I say! We'll never get anywhere then!"

"Well you could stop saying such alarming things," Sam suggested.

Gabriel just glared at him. "Anyway, if you really think it's so unethical to force beings to fall in love with each other, take it up with the cupids."

"Dean punched one once," Sam said. "Though I suppose without them we wouldn't technically exist but still, you know?"

Gabriel nodded sagely. "Still. It's not all bad, though. I make sure that both parties are in love. It wouldn't do to be unscrupulous, now would it?"

"You can really bring people back to life, though?" Sam asked skeptically. "I thought only angels could do that. Or God. Crossroad demons. Death."

"Yeah, that's quite an exclusive list there," Gabriel said sarcastically.

"I've never heard of genies being able to do it is the point."

"Well you had never heard of genies at all until like twenty minutes ago so that's hardly surprising."

Sam shook his head. "Look...I may not know much about real genies but I know better than to believe in miracles and someone who could grant my every wish for the rest of my life definitely falls in the whole 'too good to be true' category. We can't even get brought back to life without turning into demons or missing our souls or prepped to be angel meatsuits."

"Or maybe you two just have really lousy luck," Gabriel said.

"I'm just saying I don't want to risk it," Sam said firmly. "These things never work out well. So…thanks but no thanks."

Gabriel stared at him as though he had never seen anything like him before. Sam was uncomfortably used to the feeling. "You can't just turn down a genie. You can't do it."

"Well it's not like you can force me to make wishes," Sam pointed out. "Or to keep the lamp."

"You'd really just send me off for someone else to find and use it?" Gabriel asked skeptically, crossing his arms. "Seems a bit…reckless given you just said you don't trust me."

"I could always destroy the lamp."

Gabriel laughed. "You could try."

"I could hide it somewhere nobody will ever find it."

"Didn't you ever see Jumanji?"

"I can hide it somewhere nobody will find it for so long that it will no longer be my problem in hundreds of years when it eventually gets discovered," Sam countered.

"That's a little short-sighted of you," Gabriel said. "And why would you even want to get rid of me? Isn't there anything about your life you'd like to fix? I think I heard something about how pretty much everyone you know is dead?"

"I'd have to trust you way more before even beginning to think about that," Sam said flatly. "Not all second lives are good things and some prices are too much."

"Speaking from experience?"

Sam didn't dignify that with a response.

"So what are you going to do?" Gabriel asked.

"Are there any limits on your powers?" Sam asked.

Gabriel shrugged. "Some, sure. It really depends how creative I'm feeling."

"See, that's exactly what I'm worried about," Sam said. "I don't think I could stand to analyze every conceivable wish just to make sure that the pizza I wished for isn't poisoned or whatever for the rest of my life."

Gabriel looked at him, puzzled. "Why would I poison your pizza?"

"I don't know," Sam said. "Maybe you wouldn't. We've just met."

"You could keep me around and get to know and trust me and then start making with the wishes," Gabriel suggested.

"Yeah, I've tried the whole 'I'll just hang around, not doing anything, we go way back, of course you can trust me and I'm not going to start the apocalypse or anything' thing before," Sam said flatly.

Gabriel stared at him. "Demon chick again?"

"Maybe."

"I'm really not going to start the apocalypse."

"That's what she said, is all I'm saying."

"Do you make a habit of comparing everyone you meet to that one demon who screwed you over that one time?" Gabriel asked curiously.

"I'm not going to say yes but you do have to admit you're pretty suspicious."

"I think you'll find that I don't have to do anything and there's nothing even a little bit suspicious about me," Gabriel complained.

"Not having to do anything is a very suspicious thing in a genie," Sam said.

"How would you know?" Gabriel said. "You don't-"

"Know anything about genies, I know, I know," Sam interrupted, rolling his eyes. "But it is a bit anti-everything-I've-ever-heard-about-genies, you know, for a genie to not have to do what their master wants."

"Or maybe I just always want to do what my master wants," Gabriel said, keeping a straight face admirably. "And now you're back to slavery."

"Will you give the whole slavery thing a rest already?"

"I'm just saying, if the shoe fits-"

"You just said it doesn't."

"And you appear to be more comfortable if it did," Gabriel retorted.

"Less confused, perhaps," Sam allowed.

"I didn't actually think that you and Deano could manage to stop the apocalypse," Gabriel admitted. "I was preparing for the end and whatnot. Still, glad you guys did. And no one even died!"

"I died. Probably," Sam said.

"And Adam who you don't talk about," Gabriel agreed. "But if you won't talk about him you can't use him to bolster your argument and you're clearly fine so it doesn't count."

"I'm always 'clearly fine'," Sam protested. "Does nothing count if it happens to me?"

"Well," Gabriel said delicately. "You said it."

Sam just shook his head wordlessly. "Gabriel, I wish that you would not hurt, kill, or knowingly cause or in any way be involved in the injury, illness, or death of myself, my brother, or anybody you know or even suspect that I care about."

Gabriel let out a startled laugh. "You're really not big on the whole trust thing, are you?"

"And, even being as paranoid as I am, I've still died on multiple occasions," Sam said. "Really, I think if I started being 'trusting' I might as well just lay down and die right now."

Gabriel just shook his head and snapped his fingers.

"What's that?"

"It's how I let people know I'm granting a wish," Gabriel said. "It's more of a courtesy than anything else. I won't do anything to…well, you know what you said. I can't promise I won't spend an inordinate amount of time trying to find a loophole but, well, that's just me."

"Good luck," Sam said. "I was going to be a lawyer."

"If you're going to make it a challenge like that then I'm definitely going to find one," Gabriel threatened.

"Finding isn't the same as using," Sam pointed out.

"That's not…inaccurate," Gabriel said.

"And now that that's done and I think I'm covered, I meant what I said," Sam said.

"You said a lot of things."

"I've read enough genie stories to know how these things tend to work out. And I did love Aladdin," Sam said. "So let's just cut to the chase and never have to hear anything else about slavery. Gabriel, I wish you free."

Gabriel snapped his fingers, looking stunned. "I…have to admit, bucko, I was not expecting this little twist in the narrative."

Sam smiled wryly. "My brother and I have long been in the business of ripping out the ending."

"But this never happens," Gabriel protested.

"It's not like I can take it back," Sam said.

"I hope you wouldn't want to literally two minutes after making that wish," Gabriel said. "Save that regret for at least ten minutes."

Sam laughed. "I'll see what I can do. For now, I will just believe that I must be a better person than all those people who…I don't want to say owned-"

"Yeah, all those people," Gabriel interrupted.

"Since none of them wished you free and I did."

"Isn't that kind of reckless since you don't trust me?" Gabriel asked.

"Me and reckless go way back," Sam said, shrugging. "And I did wish that everyone I care about would be fine so I think I'm reasonably covered there. And if I catch you trying to destroy all life on Earth again I'll stop you."

Gabriel's eyebrows shot up. "Again? When did I try and do that the first time?"

"Well, maybe not you," Sam conceded. "Though it might be. Really don't know you. But everybody else I know have tried, pretty much."

"Maybe you should get to know some less apocalyptical people," Gabriel suggested.

"Working on it," Sam said dryly. "So…you're going to be taking off then?"

Gabriel paused, thinking about it. "Well I could. I could at any point."

"I feel like there's a 'but' coming," Sam said, beginning to get a bad feeling about this.

"Well you keep accusing me of all manner of vile things just because you don't know me," Gabriel complained. "So why not hang out and get to know me?"

"That's really not necessary," Sam told him. "And I'm hardly accusing you of anything."

"I feel accused," Gabriel insisted, crossing his arms. "And I know I don't have to. I'm just being nice."

"No thanks."

"You can't just 'no thanks' me being nice," Gabriel said. "It is my gift to you, nonrefundable, no receipt in the box."

"There's nothing I can do to get rid of you, is there?" Sam asked, sighing.

"Should have wished I'd leave you alone when you wanted me to before you freed me," Gabriel said cheerfully. "And no, you can't. Not unless you can figure out how to banish a genie."

"Damn it, Sammy, I can't leave you alone for five minutes," Dean grumbled. "God only knows how you didn't start a plague or something back at Stanford."

"Well he did become besties with a demon who killed his girlfriend," Gabriel pointed out.

"That one wasn't my fault," Sam protested. "And how do you even know that?"

"I don't know how he does but he is right," Dean said, nodding.

"I was fine when you were in Purgatory for a year."

'Actually, I'm pretty sure I heard something about you hitting a dog," Dean corrected. "And the less said about that summer of blood and demon sex the better."

"You two lead such interesting lives," Gabriel said happily.

"Five minutes!" Dean exclaimed.

"First of all, it was more like five hours and, secondly, it was your lamp!"

Dean blinked. "If it was my lamp, why was Sam your master and not me?"

"Back to slave talk, I see," Gabriel said, rolling his eyes.

Dean looked over at Sam. "Do I even want to know?"

"No, you do not."

"I don't care who owns what according to human customs," Gabriel declared. "Sam rubbed the lamp so he gets the genie and proceeded to completely fail at genie-having."

"So, see?" Dean asked. "Wouldn't have happened if you'd just stayed out of my room and didn't, I don't know, feel the need to rub my lamps. And wow did that come out wrong."

"Or really right," Gabriel said, wriggling his eyebrows.

"Not when I'm talking to my brother, it's not," Dean said. "What were you even doing?"

Sam just pursed his lips.

"We'll have to assume the worst then," Gabriel said gleefully.

"Yeah, you assume the worst," Dean said. "I'll assume he was sneak-dusting again."

"I was not!"

"Sneak-dusting," Gabriel repeated. "What-"

"Don't ask," Sam said, cutting him off.

"I just don't see why you wished him free," Dean said, shaking his head.

"Well what would you have had me do?" Sam demanded. "Genies are dangerous and probably not ethical."

"They're genies," Dean said dismissively. "What's next, socks for house elves?"

"If they want them," Sam shot back. "God knows you leave enough of them out."

"I didn't ask to be freed."

"No but you kept complaining about slavery," Sam said.

"Maybe I just like complaining," Gabriel said.

Sam snorted. "That I can see. But I don't like to feel like a slave owner."

"Maybe you shouldn't have rubbed the lamp then," Gabriel said helpfully.

Sam smiled tightly. "It's a little late for that and it's not like anyone sees a lava lamp and thinks genie."

"See?" Gabriel said smugly. "Not predictable."

"And besides, I made it work."

"Look, I'm not saying that I'd keep him forever – I might end up killing him-"

"You already tried," Gabriel reminded him, not sounding particularly put out by that. He fingered the wooden stake Dean had shoved into his heart once the two had come face to face.

"But I definitely have some things I could do with," Dean continued. "And yes, I'd be careful."

"Well since he's sticking around for…however long he feels like, maybe he'll feel like being nice and do you a favor or two," Sam told him.

Gabriel snorted. "Oh, Sambo. I am very rarely nice. But we'll see."

Whether Gabriel was helpful really depended on how you looked at it.

Over the past month, he had snapped Dean's car clean twice. That might have been nice if it weren't obvious Dean had wanted to do it himself. There was always alcohol stocked at the bunker which was appreciated but there was also a nonstop stream of candy which was less so. He'd snap up take-out when they needed it but was almost as resistant to healthy food as Dean was. And when Sam went out to get himself something not so greasy he could see his reflection in it, Gabriel tagged along and complained.

Genies could heal, apparently, and when Castiel wasn't around to patch them up they were glad Gabriel was but the running commentary about their idiocy could have been done without. And if Sam had ever felt he was lacking in moose sweaters (which, for the record, he hadn't) then he would no longer have cause to.

"I'm going to kill him," Dean declared, storming into the room.

"Kill who?" Castiel asked, blinking.

Sam hazarded a guess. "Gabriel?"

"Of course Gabriel!" Dean said, throwing his hands up in the air. "Who else?"

"There are many people you wish to kill, Dean," Castiel pointed out. "You have wished to kill myself and Sam on numerous occasions."

"And you both deserved it each time," Dean swore.

"One time you wanted to kill Cas for using all the hot water," Sam reminded him.

"And he would have richly deserved it," Dean said, nodding.

"Does Dean wish to kill your genie friend a lot?" Castiel asked.

"Okay, first off, he ain't my friend," Dean said firmly. "That's way more Sam's area than mine."

"I don't know if 'friend' is the right word," Sam said. "Though I guess if one of us had to be the official Gabriel friend that would be me. And yes. Yes he does."

"Only because Gabriel provokes the shit out of me," Dean insisted.

Castiel looked to Sam for confirmation.

Sam nodded. "Either that or else Gabriel is just very naturally talented. It could actually go either way. What did he do this time?"

"I was watching Dr. Sexy and then Gabriel came in and sat down," Dean complained.

"Well, you know, Dean he does kind of live here," Sam pointed out.

"No one said he could do that! He just moved in without our permission!" Dean objected.

"Yeah but this happened a month ago so it seems a bit weird to suddenly start caring now."

"I cared then," Dean said. "I tried so hard to find a way to get rid of genies that some jackass started calling me Aladdin."

"Which isn't entirely appropriate since Aladdin liked genies," Sam added. "Or at least the genie. But apparently certain people don't appreciate 'nitpicking' or something."

Castiel cocked his head. "Would this be Gabriel or some other jackass?"

"Another hunter," Dean said dismissively. "But anyway, he comes and sits down and starts watching Dr. Sexy with me. And I figure, okay, no big deal. Because even though Gabriel seems to be literally incapable of quietly watching anything, I can deal with a little noise and maybe if he can appreciate this show we might actually have something approaching common ground."

"I take it that that is not what happened," Castiel said.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Apparently Dr. Sexy was not sexy enough for our resident ex-genie-"

"I think he's still a genie, actually," Sam interrupted. "Being a genie is more about being a member of a species and the powers than the bit about being confined to a lamp and serving a master."

"From what I understand they are so closely linked that the servitude as well as the powers and species would make up a genie," Castiel said. "Not that angels really have many dealings with genies."

"You have no idea how surprised I was to learn that those actually existed and you guys knew all about them," Sam said. "It did make me feel just a bit better about this whole situation. Last time I tried to ask Gabriel when he was leaving, he banished me to the bus station in the next town over. Which wasn't as bad as where he banished Dean when Dean asked."

"We have known of them for a very long time," Castiel said, nodding. "Though I do not believe we have ever stopped and tried to classify what made a genie a genie. And being freed like this simply does not happen with genies no matter what Aladdin might say."

Dean twitched. "If I have to hear the name of that movie one more time…"

"Well you are the one who showed him the movie, Dean," Sam pointed out.

"When I lost my grace and immortality, for example, I was considered a human," Castiel said.

Sam shook his head. "Yeah but this is somewhat different. Gabriel still has all his powers and I don't think he'd suddenly start aging so he's just…a free genie."

"That's such a contradiction of terms, though," Castiel complained.

"Or maybe just how we think about the terms. If the whole species were suddenly free – and isn't that a scary thought – then people would have to get used to the idea. Well, that or start calling them something else entirely. Hopefully not ex-genies."

Dean rolled his eyes. "If you two are done being nerds, we were talking about the crimes Gabriel has committed against Dr. Sexy."

Castiel and Sam exchanged an amused look.

"Of course, Dean," Castiel agreed.

"Dr. Sexy, if you'll believe it! It's all in the name! You can't get any sexier than that!"

"Unless he was named ironically or happens to have the last name of Sexy but not great genes," Sam offered.

"Well, trust me, that ain't Dr. Sexy's problem," Dean swore. "Gabriel spent a solid twenty-five minutes complaining and then…" he trailed off, shuddering.

Now Sam was actually getting curious. "What did he do?"

Dean took a deep breath. "He…he snapped himself into the episode!"

Sam quickly turned his laugh into a cough. "He what?"

Fortunately, Dean appeared not to notice.

"You heard me," he said grimly. "He snapped himself into an episode. And he wasn't even wearing the cowboy boots! He took Dr. Sexy's place and apparently got bored with the actual plotline so suddenly there was a volcano erupting in the cafeteria and it turned into a survivor episode!"

Castiel blinked. "I am…not as familiar with Dr. Sexy as you are, Dean, but that does sound like it would make for a very interesting episode."

"It was," Dean admitted grudgingly. "But it was all wrong and Gabriel ruined my show. When I left, he was doing a crossover with My Little Pony."

"Now that I do want to see," Sam said, trying but mostly failing to hide his smile.

"If you become a Brony you are dead to me," Dean warned.

"You're the one who knows what that word means, Dean."

Dean laughed. "Like you don't?"

"I know what all words mean," Sam said, adopting an imperious tone.

Dean just rolled his eyes but Sam could tell that he was amused.

"It's strange, isn't it," Castiel murmured, almost to himself.

Dean nodded. "I'll say."

"No, not that," Castiel said, shaking his head. "Though I will admit that that is a little bizarre as well. I just mean that I am not an infrequent visitor and you say that Gabriel is here a lot as well and yet I've never managed to meet him."

Sam hadn't noticed that. "Huh. Must be a timing thing. But here, you can come meet him right now and help me stop Dean from attempting to murder somebody on a TV show. Between us, it wouldn't even be the first time."

"Now, Sam," Dean said indulgently. "You know that nobody puts baby in a corner."

But when the three of them got to the television, they just found a regular episode of Dr. Sexy and no trace of Gabriel.

Two weeks later, Sam wandered into the room to see Gabriel wearing a disturbingly non-ugly Christmas sweater, a fire blazing in the fireplace that hadn't been there the last time Sam had been there, and surrounded by enough Christmas decorations for three Hallmark movies. He was watching Die Hard but it was the first one, at least, so that did take place at Christmas.

And that was all fine and good, really. God knew Gabriel had gotten up to a lot more disruptive things and if Sam bugged him about it he would probably even remember to put it all back.

Except…well…it was actually nowhere near Christmas. In fact, it was pretty damn hot out and it was probably only genie powers that kept the room from being completely unbearable with a blazing fire in it.

"Something wrong, Sammy?"

"Only Dean gets to call me that," Sam objected automatically.

Gabriel cocked his head. "Well it's not like you actually allow Dean to call you it, either."

"Well, no," Sam admitted. "But he's just never, ever going to give it up completely and I'm probably lucky that he even remembers to call me Sam most of the time so I've pretty much given it up. But I can't let him know that or else I'll never hear anything but Sammy from him."

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm not any more likely to change my ways than he is."

Sam laughed. "Why would that make me feel any better?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Well it's true whether it makes you feel better or not. I'm notoriously unrepentant."

Sam just sighed. "I was thinking that I should probably say something about all of this but I didn't even know where to start."

"You could start by sitting down and not standing in the doorway taunting me with your tallness," Gabriel suggested.

Sam grinned and did just that.

"Not to rush you or anything, since you said that you didn't know where to begin, but what could you possibly have to say about this little set-up?" Gabriel asked. "Other than 'Damn, Gabriel, you really know how to Christmas.'"

"That's not actually a verb," Sam felt compelled to point out.

"It kind of is," Gabriel disagreed. He gestured pointedly to the couch and Sam moved over to it and sat down. "Especially the way I just used it. Any word can be a verb or an adjective or a noun or any other boring part of speech depending on how you use it."

"Well maybe it can," Sam conceded. "But that doesn't mean it should."

Gabriel shrugged. "Economy of language. Christmas as a verb was really the best way of saying what I was looking to say."

"And then you ruined it by having this little aside about it."

Gabriel looked accusingly at him. "I believe that was your fault. I just couldn't let such slanders on my ability to communicate stand unanswered."

Sam shook his head. "I was just wondering why you're watching Die Hard when you've got your whole little Christmas theme going on here."

Gabriel gave him a pitying look. "Sammy boy, everyone knows that Die Hard is not only a Christmas movie but the best Christmas movie."

"Now you sound like Dean," Sam grumbled good-naturedly.

Gabriel just shrugged. "Statistically speaking, Dean and I are bound to agree on some things."

Sam's eyes widened and he stared at Gabriel in some surprise.

"What?"

"Nothing," Sam insisted, shaking his head. "Just you're taking being compared to Dean better than Dean would have taken being compared to you."

Gabriel smirked. "Clearly I'm the mature one in that relationship."

"I…don't even know how to respond to that," Sam admitted.

Gabriel's smirk widened. "I get that a lot. So Dean's a Die Hard is a Christmas movie believer. Perfectly sensible belief. I'm almost not surprised to find we share it though a bit disappointed that you don't seem to agree."

Sam held his hands up. "Hey, I love Die Hard as much as the next person. But all I'm saying is that it has nothing to do with Christmas."

"It takes place at Christmas! It is literally on Christmas Eve. They are at a Christmas party when they are taken hostage which might be a little weird given the day but there they are," Gabriel said. "John McClane gives this guy he kills a Santa hat and writes 'ho ho ho' on his shirt! Probably in blood but a little blood doesn't take away from the Christmas."

"The movie has nothing to do with Christmas," Sam said again. "It may be set at Christmas but there's no Santa, no spirit of the season, no talk of forgiveness and goodwill towards man and love and all that good stuff. It might happen to take place at Christmas but it's so divorced from the holiday that it could have taken place at literally any other time of the year that there would have been an office party and it would be pretty much the exact same movie! It could be a Halloween party or a Valentine's Day party or a retirement party!"

"That is all true," Gabriel agreed too easily. "But it took place at Christmas and that's really the only qualification for a Christmas movie."

"Saw VIII: the Christmas edition," Sam deadpanned.

"Oh, I saw that," Gabriel said. He shuddered. "You don't even want to know what they did to the guy in the Santa costume."

Sam figured that Gabriel probably had a point about that one. "But why are you watching Christmas movies right now? It's not December. It's not even late November."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "Are you seriously trying to make me beholden to a calendar?"

"Most of the world is."

"Most of the world is not me," Gabriel said as if that settled everything. "It'll be Christmas when I want it to be Christmas and I don't think you're being properly appreciative of the fact that I could make it far more Christmas than just celebrating it in this room."

"I shouldn't have to be," Sam grumbled. "But please carry on not messing with the fabric of space and time because you like Christmas."

"Only for you, Sam," Gabriel said nobly, nodding at him.

"So what are you going to do when Die Hard is over?" Sam asked sarcastically. "Texas Chain Saw Massacre?"

Gabriel laughed. "Kid, if you think that those two movies have anything in common you either haven't seen them or we really need to talk about your basic comprehension skills. Besides, I don't know exactly when that movie takes place but I'm pretty sure the answer is 'not Christmas.'"

"Clearly you are far too unpredictable for me to be able to figure out your next movie," Sam said dryly.

Gabriel grinned. "And don't you forget it! Actually, right now I'm trying to decide if I should watch the other Die Hard movies even though they don't take place at Christmas – well, except for the second one – or if I should move on to my Christmas Carol marathon."

"I can see what you mean," Sam said, having been subjected to many a Die Hard marathon over the years. "It's one thing to just watch the first one but if the first is a Christmas movie than the second is, too, but you can't just watch the first two and not any of the others."

Gabriel slid down in his seat. "Why does life have to be so hard?"

"Is that a general inquiry or are you taking your movie watching decisions that seriously?"

"Oh, believe me, I am very serious about movies. And Christmas."

"So I know what a Die Hard marathon is but I have to admit I'm a bit lost about a Christmas Carol marathon," Sam said.

Gabriel blinked. "It's pretty self-explanatory."

"Except that clearly it is not because if it was then I wouldn't have to ask," Sam argued.

"Okay, fine. It's like this. I've always loved A Christmas Carol," Gabriel said. "I read it pretty soon after it first came out and I love the adaptations. I watch all of them. In order. Not every year, just whenever I feel in a Christmas Carol mood and I feel like one right now."

"All of them?" Sam repeated incredulously.

"Yep."

"Aren't there kind of a lot?"

"Twenty-one films, twenty-five TV specials, and seven parodies," Gabriel confirmed. "Along with other assorted operas, plays, musicals, and radio programs. I'm watching all of them. Yes, even ones like The Right to be Happy which were 'lost to time' or something like that."

"I suppose that little details like something no longer existing don't give you pause," Sam said.

"You suppose right," Gabriel said cheerfully. "So, what do you think? Up for it?"

"I'm not sure there is anyone up for that much Christmas Carol," Sam said frankly. "But…"

"But?" Gabriel asked hopefully.

"I grew up on Mickey's Christmas Carol and I've always loved the Muppet version. Call me then."

"Will do."

Sam wondered what it said about his life that he didn't even react when Gabriel suddenly appeared in the front seat of his car while he was driving along.

"Does Dean know that you put an iPod jack in his car?"

"Our car," Sam corrected. "And Dean doesn't not know that I did that."

Gabriel laughed. "Please, that's an evasion if I ever heard one."

"All I'm saying is that after one too many times with Dean coming back from hell or purgatory or a nap and discovered that I had 'violated' the Impala, Dean and I came to a silent agreement that he would stop freaking out about the fact that I've come to terms with the fact that this is no longer the 90s and I would hide the evidence so he didn't have to come to terms with it too much."

"Yeah but when you say 'silent agreement' how do you know that he has any idea that any of this happened?" Gabriel asked. "If you don't actually have an oral or at least written communication at some point then one party can think that you agreed to help cast your brother into hell and there you are thinking you just made plans to have nachos later."

That gave Sam pause. "That seems oddly specific."

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Every specific situation is. All of them."

"Is that specific situation one you are specifically familiar with?" Sam clarified.

"We're not here to talk about my life," Gabriel said loudly.

Sam let it go. "Well if Dean doesn't know then he's happy in his ignorance and since this time him not knowing what I am up to is highly unlikely to lead to the end of the world, I'm going to let it go."

"Yeah but I bet that's what you thought last time," Gabriel said. "You know, when it kind of did."

Sam made a big show of looking around. "Damn this place looks great for a post-apocalyptic wasteland."

"Whatever, smartass."

Sam took a moment to ruminate on the irony of Gabriel accusing anyone else, literally anyone at all, of being a smartass. "What are you even doing here anyway?"

"Oh, Dean's off with his boyfriend and I'd hate to interrupt," Gabriel said casually.

"Have you even met Cas yet?" Sam asked.

"Angels of the Lord are total buzzkills," Gabriel confided. "Well…I did like Balthazar. But last I heard he was still dead. Tell you what, if he shows up and wants to meet me then we'll talk."

"Last you heard he was still dead?" Sam asked, surprised. "Why wouldn't he be?"

Gabriel shrugged. "I don't know. But if your precious little Team Free Will can be brought back to life practically before you even die then I'm not willing to rule out anything. I'm not saying he or anyone else will be but if they are then good for them."

Well that did sound pretty reasonable as far as these things went.

"So I get why you want to avoid the bunker but are you sure you want to be here with me?"

Gabriel snapped his fingers. Sam braced himself but he appeared to have only done that for effect, not because he was using his powers. "Now that you mention it, I had actually wanted to be on a beach right now but I thought it would be terribly rude to let you know that I didn't mean to be here. Now that the jig is up though, I'll just be going."

Sam just rolled his eyes. "You know I don't care if you tag along. I am just on the kind of errand that I know tends to drive you crazy."

It took Gabriel a moment to make the connection but once he did he made a face. "Oh, don't tell me you're going grocery shopping."

"I could but then I'd be lying."

"And you're going to insist on getting all that healthy crap," Gabriel complained.

"Well we've got all our unhealthy crap covered through whatever you snap up and all our take-out," Sam said reasonably. "We really just need to go to the store to get things that everyone can agree is edible."

"Well you clearly failed because I do not agree that anything you get here was ever fit for human consumption," Gabriel said stubbornly, crossing his arms.

"It's just health food."

"What's wrong with the kind of stuff you get in take-out?" Gabriel demanded.

"Nothing's wrong with it," Sam said. "It's just that I can't eat nothing but diner food and take-out twenty-four seven."

"Why not?" Gabriel challenged. "I do it."

"You don't actually need to eat."

"Dean does it."

"Would you rather I start making my life decisions based on his?" Sam challenged.

Gabriel winced. "Maybe…not so much. Greasy food tastes better! Everyone knows that. If healthy food sold it would be more readily available."

"Healthy food is more expensive," Sam countered. "Thus demonstrating its more valuable qualities."

"You eat healthy even in these fast food paradises," Gabriel accused. "If there's anything there remotely resembling a salad, you're all over it."

"I just want a little variety," Sam said. "I eat plenty of take-out, even when I can't get something healthy-ish. When I get the chance to just make a sandwich or have a plum of course I'm going to take it."

"But why?" Gabriel demanded. "And don't give me that 'I want to stay healthy' crap. Not only is Dean doing just fine on what he eats but it's not like I can't just keep you guys looking like you eat nothing but healthy crap all day while you live on a steady diet of cake and coke."

"I like eating healthy," Sam said stubbornly. "It makes me feel good. And if you don't want to see it, no one's forcing you to."

"I do this in the hopes that one day I will get through to you," Gabriel informed him.

"I'd wish you luck but I'd rather you didn't have it, really," Sam said. "And besides, not that this really would change anything, but you can fix our insides up all you want so we don't have too much cholesterol or high blood pressure or whatever but how long are you really going to be sticking around for? Do you intend to be here letting us cheat on our diets when we're a hundred and forbidden from even looking at candy?"

"Forbidden from looking at candy?" Gabriel gasped, a head to his heart, clearly ignoring the question. "The tyrants! And expecting that to even be an issue? That's really optimistic of you, Sam. Almost freakishly so."

Sam shrugged. "What can I say? The health food brings the optimist out in me."

One thing that Gabriel liked to do from time to time was to stop by and whisk Sam away to far-off places. He claimed that the reason he'd never taken Dean was because he knew that Dean would do nothing but complain about it for the rest of forever, even if he ended up having fun, and Sam couldn't deny that Gabriel might have had a point.

Of course, Sam wasn't above complaining himself, especially when Gabriel kind of forgot to ask him or even let him know that he was taking him somewhere before they were off. And Gabriel was surprisingly difficult to bring around on the matter.

That day, he had actually said 'Hey, do you want to go see the Vatican?' but then the two of them were there before Sam had a chance to reply. He figured that, since he was there, he might as well enjoy it but Gabriel clearly had a long way to go on issues of getting permission. Maybe it was a response to all those years as a genie where someone else could just come up and wish to be taken places and Gabriel had no say. But he knew that, even if he was coping with any trauma or whatnot, it would do no good to mention any of this to Gabriel himself because Gabriel would not hesitate to take shameless advantage of anything Sam did that would make him more likely to give Gabriel his way. And since Gabriel could technically take his way whenever he really wanted to, he didn't need any extra advantages.

It was a nice day out so they spent some time looking around in the outside areas visitors were allowed to go to. The gardens themselves needed a tour to get to and while Sam would like to see them he didn't want Gabriel creating an entire tour to arrange that. They stopped for lunch and Sam couldn't stop thinking how strange it was that he was just sitting in the Vatican, not quite in Rome but almost, eating pizza. He couldn't speak Italian but in such a popular tourist spot like this there was plenty of English to be found and something told him Gabriel wouldn't have any problems if either of them really needed to speak the language. He did speak Latin, of course, and saw enough of it around to make him smile.

They stopped by the modern artwork displayed in the Vatican that Dean would never believe him was actually there. Sam had been well-aware of its presence but he still found it a bit surreal. He took pictures of some of the interesting pieces (and every couple pictures unexpectedly featured Gabriel) and even some of the decorations. He felt a bit silly just taking pictures of that but it was all so nice-looking and interesting.

They'd been held up for quite a while at a bust with a gigantic mouth that Gabriel simply couldn't get enough of. It wasn't just that it had a large mouth, really. It was just…The top half of the bust looked pretty normal. Its forehead was scrunched up but nothing implausible. Then it was like its mouth was just this wind tunnel or something. It was improbably large and heart-shaped. There was a comparatively small hole in the statue that Sam supposed was the actual mouth part and did that make the rest just the world's largest and most improbably shaped lips or what? He and Gabriel debated it for at least twenty minutes (when Gabriel could bring himself to stop having hysterics) but couldn't come to a conclusion.

And that had led them to the Sistine Chapel where Sam had the niggling feeling that Gabriel thought he was being ridiculous.

"You're being ridiculous."

It was just a feeling, really.

"I'm just obeying what the sign said," Sam said, entirely reasonably.

"Sam, you realize that no one else is doing that," Gabriel pointed out.

Sam looked around. It was true that there were dozens of people that he could see, all pointing their phones up at the mural on the ceiling. At least their flash appeared to be off.

"And they probably do it all the time. And nobody cares."

"That's good for them but I'm not doing it," Sam said firmly.

"You have no idea how weird it is to see you being all Mr. Law Abiding," Gabriel complained. "You're one of the most competent conmen I've ever seen and, even taking misunderstandings about killing demons and things out of consideration, you could easily go away for about ten lifetimes by now."

"If you want a picture so badly then why don't you take it?" Sam suggested archly.

"Maybe I will," Gabriel said, a phone appearing in his hand. He then proceeded to wander around the room very pointedly taking pictures of everything he could think of. "And I'm not sharing!"

Sam quickly finished looking around and then ducked out, figuring Gabriel could catch up when he was ready. Apparently he only needed another two minutes.

"I'm just saying, don't you find it suspicious?" Dean asked, glancing furtively over his shoulder as if he expected Gabriel to have just materialized behind him like Castiel always did.

"Don't I find what suspicious, Dean?" Sam asked, deciding that discretion was the better part of valor and Dean didn't need to know that he suspected Gabriel could invisibly overhear them.

"Dude's been here for almost a year and he's never met Cas?" Dean demanded. "That's not majorly screwy?"

"Gabriel's not here twenty-four/seven," Sam reminded him. "And neither is Cas. Or even us."

"Yeah but they're both here often enough. And we have tried introducing him. Hell, I even brought the matter up with Gabriel and he's all 'oh, sure, I'd love to, when? Oh, right now? Sorry, busy' and just pops off!"

Well, when he put it like that it did seem a bit odd. And Sam couldn't say that he hadn't noticed this himself.

"Maybe Gabriel really is avoiding meeting Cas," Sam acknowledged. "But I don't know what that means."

"It means that he's probably up to something, might even be evil," Dean said. "Why else would he hide from an angel?"

Sam just gave him a look.

"Well, other than all the reasons we've had for hiding from angels," Dean amended. "But I highly doubt a genie is in high demand to act as a vessel and, since he can teleport and has 'phenomenal cosmic powers', I don't think he's at much risk from them as, say, we are. Besides, Cas isn't like that."

Sam sighed. "Dean, we've done all the tests. And the bunker is warded against every monster we know how to ward against. He definitely isn't bothered by the holy water." Almost the opposite, in fact. "So while I agree it's weird he's avoiding Cas and I'd probably ask him if I thought I'd get a straight answers, I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to be suspicious of. So he doesn't want to meet an angel. What, does that mean he's out to start the apocalypse or something?"

"I don't know," Dean growled. "But I don't like it."

"I don't see what you want to do about it," Sam said. "We can't very well just call Cas down secretly and then trick Gabriel into showing up."

Dean got a thoughtful look on his face.

"We really can't," Sam said loudly.

Dean just smiled innocently at him.

"So I know you're avoiding Cas," Sam said bluntly when Gabriel poofed into existence on his bed. Sam himself was at the desk but Gabriel didn't look like he was in any hurry to move.

Gabriel blinked at him. "Avoiding? How can I possibly be avoiding someone that I've never met?"

"I think the fact that you've never met him says a great deal about your avoiding skills," Sam said. "So kudos, seriously."

"I just love finding myself at the center of conspiracy theories."

"It's not that I care, really. Avoid whoever you want. But Dean's getting this thing about it so you might want to watch out lest he try to lock you in a closet or something."

Gabriel laughed. "That's sweet but I'll have you know that when I get into a fight with a closet I nearly always win."

Sam tilted his head. "And yet you say 'nearly.'"

"I don't want to talk about it," Gabriel said, looking briefly and theatrically haunted.

"I'll respect that," Sam said, "and imagine something painfully embarrassing."

"Your imagination has nothing on mine."

Sam just smiled and turned back to his laptop.

After a few minutes, Gabriel asked, "If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?"

Sam raised an eyebrow pointedly as he turned back to Gabriel. "Are you seriously asking that of a guy who had a genie and only wished for you to not harm anyone I cared about before sending you on your way? Or, well, trying to?"

Gabriel shrugged. "I'm just curious. And I really shouldn't have to be since, as you said, you had the opportunity to let me know exactly what you wanted. Besides, I guess, for me not to kill everyone you cared about. But I find that's a pretty common wish. Well, when people know that I can, at least. It doesn't always occur to them."

"And is it a problem that it doesn't always occur to them?"

Another shrug. "Not to me, it wasn't."

Sam liked Gabriel, he really did. But he was usually pretty glad he had thought to make that wish before letting him go.

"Seriously, there's nothing?" Gabriel pressed.

"Well the most basic ones already didn't count with you," Sam pointed out. "I wish for unlimited wishes, for example."

"And you squandered it with a grand total of two. Seriously, even if we did do the whole three wishes shtick you still wouldn't have taken full advantage," Gabriel complained.

"Did you like being a genie or something?" Sam asked, frowning. "You sure do like complaining about me being a bad lamp owner."

Gabriel snorted. " 'Bad lamp owner.' That's a euphemism if I ever heard one. Being a typical-ish – but still very original! – genie was alright. You're just a very odd person. It's part of why I'm sticking around. That and I do enjoy annoying your brother."

"And refusing to meet our angel friend."

Gabriel ignored that. "Seriously, you could have wished for anything. Perfect health no matter what you ate, accelerated healing with all the beatings you take, no scarring, the ability to convince anyone of anything, a gas tank that never runs out of gas, always just the amount of money in your pocket that you need…the possibilities are endless!"

"What's the point in trying to convince me of that now?" Sam asked. "I can't very well unwish you free!"

"Would you want to?" Gabriel asked, peering at him curiously.

"No," Sam said. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "All those things would be nice, I guess, but…I don't know. We don't even let Cas zap us places if we can help it. Though we won't turn down free healing. Some things are just…our lives are supernatural enough as it is. Sometimes it's nice to do things just the normal, human way even if it's not as convenient."

Gabriel stared at him. "I have literally never found that to be the case."

"Then it's a good thing you're a genie and not a human," Sam replied.

Gabriel laughed lightly. "There is that. But come on, I heard you when you were trying to get 'Cas' to let you know whether or not I was a djinn who trapped you. You didn't want to have started the apocalypse-"

"That's a couple years too late and even if you could change that I'd rather you didn't," Sam said.

"Why not?"

"Because as much as I hate always being that guy, once the apocalypse started we ended it and it was a damn miracle. I didn't know that I'd be able to wrestle control of my body away from Lucifer. In fact, I would have bet you anything that I wouldn't have and I was just giving him everything he wanted to really start destroying us in earnest," Sam said seriously. "But it's not like we thought opening up the Cage and then pushing him in would work either. And we only even knew about that because we heard Death was in Chicago and were trying to stop him from destroying it and killing millions of people and he wanted us to get rid of Lucifer for binding him. It was a one in a million kind of thing and I wouldn't want to risk any of that by changing the past. Not to mention that even if it did all play out the way it was supposed to, I'd rather not spend decades down in the Cage with Lucifer again."

Gabriel nodded. "That's fair enough. I wouldn't want to accidentally un-end the apocalypse either. And you said that pretty much everyone you know and love has been violently murdered?"

"Well, it's not everyone," Sam hedged. "There's still Jody and Garth, for example. And Cas but I mean you knew that. And murder might not be the right word for all of them. But other than that…yeah. We just live in very dangerous times, I guess. I'd say it's a wonder that Dean, Cas, and I have made it this long but we die more often than anybody. It just never seems to stick."

"Lucky you."

Sam smiled wryly. "Is it? I mean, I'm not suicidal or anything. Far from it. If someone burst into here right now and tried to kill me I'd do everything I could to prevent it. But…I've died enough times and seen enough death and been through enough crap that I'll be ready when it does happen. This was leading up to 'well, don't you want to wish the people you love back to life', wasn't it?"

Gabriel nodded. "Most people do."

Sam bit his lip. "I'm not going to lie. Part of me wants to, absolutely. But I've been there. I've been brought back, or rather saved from dying, against my will when I was at peace and that was just…that was a ridiculously bad situation. And I've been up to heaven before. I can even remember one of those trips. The people I met up there…they weren't suicidal either. But once they were dead, once they were out of it, once they were at peace…I've come to believe it would be far more selfish to yank them out of heaven and drag them back to Earth and to the messy life and messier death a hunter can expect than to just let them go."

Gabriel just stared at him.

Awkwardly, Sam cleared his throat. "I mean, I could be wrong. I'm just basing this on what Ash and Pamela told me. And Pamela was having so much fun in heaven she ended up pushing Dean into saying yes to Michael because what was so bad about half the planet being wiped out if they all ended up up there. Maybe some of them would want the chance to live out the rest of their lives. I just…I don't know. Bringing people back from the dead has never been a purely good thing in my experience. Even when Cas brought Dean back that first time, it was only after he broke the first seal and so the angels could dick us around and use us as meat puppets."

Gabriel nodded sympathetically. "Angels do tend to be dicks. I can see what you're saying, Sam. I can live forever, barring accidents. Or Death actually reaping God. That might do the rest of us in, too. And I'm not human. I don't know what there is, if there is anything, for people like me."

"You don't think you'd end up in Purgatory?"

Gabriel made a face. "I'm hoping I wouldn't and, besides, I rather doubt it anyway. But, like I was saying, for beings like me it's hard to imagine making peace with your death like that. But I guess I can sort of see what you mean. And for friends and family chilling in heaven, why not? But what about those that aren't that lucky? What about the guy you said was still stuck in the Cage?"

Sam's throat was dry. "Adam."

"Yeah, what about him?" Gabriel asked shrewdly. "He clearly isn't just fine where he is."

"No, I know that but…" Sam trailed off, pushing back from the desk. He stood up and stalked to the other side of the room. "Don't you think I know that? I didn't mean to…it was just that I had to watch the angel possessing me murder two people that I cared about who were only trying to help me do what I should have been able to do in the first place. At least Cas got rid of Michael so Dean could try to get through to me but Bobby just shot me because I was hurting Dean. Lucifer was hurting him but he was in me. And then Dean just kept begging me and telling me it was alright and he wasn't going to leave me, even as Lucifer was beating the shit out of him. His death wouldn't have been quick. And then I got control back but it wouldn't hold. And Michael was actually trying to convince me to just stop and let the apocalypse happen after all, after everything, because it was his destiny to kill Lucifer. I tried to ignore him but he grabbed me, tried to pull me out before I could get into the Cage. I didn't have a lot of time to think. I pulled him in instead. And then Adam. And then…I got out and he didn't."

Gabriel was quiet for a long moment. "So you would change it, if you could."

Sam choked out a laugh. "Of course I would. He was just a kid. He shouldn't have even been involved but Dean wouldn't say yes so they turned to him. They hurt him. We went to save him but we couldn't. And it's not like…we barely knew the guy. I don't blame him for not looking to immediately be brothers but towards the end…Zachariah knew that by using him he could lure us in. Dean told him he was family. We were going to save him. But we didn't. And I dragged him to hell. And then Dean had to choose between saving him or me and of course he was always going to save me but it took Death himself to get me out and he wouldn't save us both. All the regret in the world won't fix that so what's even the point?"

"What's the point indeed?" Gabriel asked, almost to himself.

Then he vanished.

Dean found him several hours later making his way through a bottle of brandy. He wasn't drunk by any means but he no longer wanted to stab something so there was that at least.

Dean grabbed a glass and sat down across from him. He poured himself half a glass and took a gulp before he asked, "Anyone die?"

Sam shrugged morosely. "Probably. I haven't heard anything."

"Then what's up? We didn't even do anything today."

"I know," Sam said. "It's just…Gabriel kept pestering me to tell him things that I didn't wish for but would have if I hadn't freed him."

Dean rolled his eyes. "That guy is like a dog with a bone."

"He brought up Adam."

Dean slammed his glass on the table. "Fuck. How does he even know about that?"

Sam shrugged, not wanting to admit he sort of brought it up first. "He knew everything else about the end of the apocalypse. It wasn't exactly a secret."

"So you broke out the brandy," Dean concluded.

"I didn't want to talk about it but you know how he is. I wasn't going to get away with not talking about it unless I wanted to hear nothing but that from him for the next month or so," Sam said, taking the bottle and carefully pouring himself another half a glass. "And it's just one of those things that sucks but we can't change it. We'd save him if we could."

"Damn right we would," Dean agreed, taking the bottle from Sam's hands and pouring himself another glass as well. "It's not like I didn't ask. Death just didn't want to play ball."

"It's one of those things," Sam said again. "Like Dad dying for you when you were earmarked for heaven and the angels would have just sent you back eventually to be Michael's meatsuit. Or you selling your soul because I was too stupid to make sure the guy trying to kill me was really down for the count. Or Jess being killed because I loved her and left her or that voicemail you sent right before I killed Lilith."

Dean glanced sharply over at him, a strange look on his face. "That voicemail? We, uh, never really talked about that. I assumed you didn't get it until it was too late. I didn't know that you'd necessarily be checking your calls or that you'd even want to hear from me."

Sam smiled mirthlessly. "Oh, no. I got it. It actually convinced me to…it doesn't matter. But I get it."

"Well I don't," Dean said, slamming his glass down on the table again and sloshing around the liquid inside. "Are you telling me that you actually got that message and you still went ahead and didn't even contact me?"

"What was I supposed to say, Dean?" Sam demanded. "You made it pretty clear. I was a monster, a vampire. Dad told you you had to either kill me or save me and you were done trying to save me. I wasn't even me anymore and there was no going back. What was I supposed to say to that? It's not that I didn't agree, because I did, but I just…I thought I was stopping the apocalypse. And I may have damned myself but it wasn't that different than me jumping into the Cage later. If it had worked I still think it would have been worth it."

Dean just stared at him, clearly stricken.

"Dean, it's alright," Sam said gently. "I really did break the world. I chose a demon over you and you were right about her all along. You had every right to be mad and in the end…but we moved past it. You've got to know that I'm not still holding that against you or anything. I didn't even really then."

"And that's what pushed you to do it?" Dean asked. "You might have been having second thoughts or something and you checked your messages and heard that and went through with it?"

"The demon…she was hiding in her vessel," Sam said curtly. "Her name was Cindy Mckellen. The demon gave her back control, she didn't think I'd really do it. You weren't…you weren't wrong about me, Dean."

There was a long silence.

Sam stared pointedly down at the drink in his hands. Why had he even brought this up? There was no point. It was like with Adam. They couldn't change the past. Now he was just thinking about it again and hurting Dean and nothing good was going to come from this. This was why they didn't talk about these things.

"Yeah," Dean said finally, nodding. "Except…that's not what I said."

Sam's eyes shot up and he stared at Dean in stark disbelief. "Excuse me? I may not have exactly saved the message and I couldn't give it to you verbatim but I definitely remember the gist of it."

"I was looking for you," Dean said. "I was pissed, I'm not going to lie. Bobby kept trying to get me to call you, he said I was the only one who could get through to you. I didn't want to. I was freaking livid, man. Then the angels abducted me and Zachariah couldn't wait to tell me all about how they weren't actually looking to stop the apocalypse. And yeah, I had been wondering about how they could be so very bad at saving seals and why if archangels scared Lilith so badly they couldn't just zap over there and take her out but I never thought…but then it all made sense."

"Yeah," Sam said shortly. "Everything made a lot more sense after that."

"But before they told me, I kept trying to get to you. I left you one message and then suddenly my phone wouldn't work anymore. Zachariah wouldn't let me leave and even Cas had to full-on rebel before he'd take me to you. The angels wanted you to kill Lilith and so did all the demons. Remember that when I tell you that that's not what I said."

Sam felt like he'd been punched in the gut. "What?"

"I guess we never really talked about it. What was there to say? You thought you heard what I said and I figured you probably listened to the message at some point but even if you just straight-up erased it it didn't matter anymore. Why would we compare notes? But I guess we should have."

"Wha-what did you say then?" Sam asked, clearing his throat.

"Oh, I don't know," Dean said, waving a hand dismissively. "It's been years. But not that. It was something about how I was going to kick your ass but that I shouldn't have said what I said and we were brothers no matter how bad things got. You know, things that actually sound like me."

Sam bit down the urge to remind Dean that he had said a lot of things not that different from what the voicemail had said. He had even told him that if he walked out that door then he should never come back even though he knew damn well just how seriously Sam had taken it when John had said those exact same words. But it wasn't like Sam hadn't said some cruel things, too, and neither one of them had been in their right minds and it was years ago and so it didn't matter anymore.

"Well, I-I'm glad to hear that then," Sam said finally

"Frigging angels," Dean said, shaking his head in disgust. "If it weren't for Cas I'd give up on the whole lot of them. Even Anna tried to kill us in the end. They're big enough dicks when they're not actually working with demons."

"Hear, hear."

Sam woke up the next morning to a text from Dean.

'Dude, get in here now.'

Despite the fact that it didn't actually say where Dean was, there were only so many places for Dean to be and if it were really important he'd have called or at least been more specific.

He threw on some clothes and checked a few rooms before finding his brother in the kitchen.

He wasn't alone.

Gabriel Sam almost expected but, despite all the time Sam had spent thinking about him yesterday, Adam was certainly not.

"I'm not awake."

"You and me both," Dean agreed.

"Oh, please," Gabriel said, rolling his eyes. "You two may be weirdly codependent soulmates but you haven't yet hit shared dream status. But fine, believe you're asleep if you want."

"This can't be real," Sam protested.

"It is," Gabriel said. "Not that you'd trust a dream to be honest with you about this sort of thing."

"I looked," Dean bit out. "Believe me, I looked. I even checked to see if there was a way to open that damn Cage again once Lilith was gone-"

"Dean!"

"I'm not saying I would have used it!" Dean said defensively. "I just looked. There was nothing."

"There was Death," Gabriel reminded him.

"Yeah but he said he wouldn't get both of them out," Dean said. He glanced at Adam. "And I'm sorry but you know that I had to go with Sammy."

Adam frowned consideringly before shrugging. "I'd have chosen my mother over the both of you so I guess that's fair."

"That's fair?" Dean repeated. "You're taking this awfully well, man."

"Well I appear to no longer be in hell so I think it's a day for taking things well," Adam replied.

"You guys can talk about that in a minute," Gabriel said loudly. "I don't know how much time I have so I should just explain quickly."

"What do you mean you don't know how much time you have?" Sam asked, alarmed. "Was it Death? Gabriel, what did you do?"

"Oh, don't worry about it," Gabriel said flippantly. "It's not Death I'm worried about. Maybe he wouldn't help you but it's cool. I owed him a favor."

Dean frowned. "That makes no sense. You owed him a favor so therefore he did you another favor? Shouldn't it be he owed you one?"

"But he didn't owe me," Gabriel said. "I owed him. As for how that works…who can say? Death's kind of a funny guy."

A bright light shown suddenly and the kitchen started to shake.

Sam and Dean exchanged wary looks because they knew what that meant.

"And that is my cue," Gabriel said, nodding and standing up.

"Wait!" Adam objected, grabbing a hold of his arm. "You can't just leave! What about-"

"I'll be back," Gabriel promised, gently disentangling himself. "Just hang out here with your brothers for a while and have a proper chick flick moment and then I'll send you back home. I've just got to take care of this really quickly so it doesn't become this huge thing, you know?"

Without waiting for an answer, Gabriel snapped his fingers and was gone.

"Okay, first thing's first," Dean said, sliding into Gabriel's unoccupied seat. "Why are angels looking for him?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with him avoiding Cas. Or maybe it's about whatever deal he worked out with Death. I mean, they probably found out that someone was messing with the Cage and since Cas wasn't involved this time they can't just hear about it from him."

"I do not like this, I do not like this at all," Dean said darkly. He glanced at Adam. "Not that I'm complaining about the whole you being out of the Cage thing or anything. That is most definitely a good thing, especially if you actually have your soul."

"Don't worry, I'm not offended," Adam was quick to assure them. "But why wouldn't I have my soul?"

"I got brought back to life without my soul like a year and a half before my soul got out of the Cage," Sam explained. "Of course Death was the one to free my soul then so I think we can trust he did it right this time, too."

"Plus I'm not really getting any terminator vibes from you," Dean said. "Which brings us to how much do you remember? Because I came back from four months up here of hell and it was bad. Sam came back from a year and a half in the Cage and it was worse. You were down there for five years, Adam. How are you not having a complete meltdown right now?"

Adam looked disconcerted at that. "I can't believe it's been five years."

"Because it feels like more time passed down in hell – which it did – or because Death put up a wall around your mind, like he did mine, and so you don't remember any of it?" Sam asked shrewdly.

"The second," Adam said, looking confused. "The last thing I remember is being dragged down and then suddenly I'm sitting in your kitchen. But I don't understand. Dean said that you were really badly off when you got back from hell but you just said that you had a wall up that stopped you from remembering."

"That's the thing about walls," Dean said shortly. "They fall down."

Adam looked even more alarmed at that.

"It didn't just fall down by itself," Sam quickly assured him. "There was…it was a little complicated with me because I had all these memories that I didn't have access to right away of my year soulless and I kept coming across things that triggered those memories in me which might have already caused some cracks. But since you were entirely down there the whole time you shouldn't have that problem. And then someone was trying to-to distract Dean and me so we wouldn't stop them from doing something stupid and so they intentionally broke the wall. You shouldn't have to worry about that."

Of course, there was no proof he wouldn't have to either. Death had told Dean that the wall wasn't permanent. It could last a lifetime and hopefully up in heaven the trauma would be easier to handle. But it might not. But if that happened, hopefully they'd have a better idea of how to handle it than what happened when it was him in Adam's shoes.

Slowly, Adam nodded. "So what happened? Why, after five years, did you finally find a way to get me out? I mean, I heard why you couldn't get me out when Sam got out and it was still a long time for him. Why now?"

Dean looked pointedly at Sam. "Yeah, Sam. Why now?"

Sam scratched his neck uncomfortably. "Gabriel was a genie I found in Dean's lamp. I ended up wishing him free and he's been hanging around. I guess he was looking for a wish he could grant for me and somehow we ended up on the subject of how much I wished that we could save you. I had no idea he intended to persuade Death to save you or that he could really pull it off. Maybe that's why he didn't tell me, in case it didn't work."

"I suppose I should thank you then," Adam said mildly.

"Thank us?" Dean couldn't believe it. "Adam, it was only because of us that your life even got messed up in the first place. I mean, Dad never told us about you so we couldn't have found you before those ghouls that ate you tried to trap us but he should have at least let you know what was out there, maybe gave you a chance. And then you only got yanked out of heaven because those sons of bitches were trying to manipulate me into saying yes to Michael and getting the apocalypse on the road."

"It's not like they forced me," Adam admitted with a sigh. "They came to me and they made me an offer. Heaven was pretty nice but I was all alone. They said they'd bring my mom back and the two of us could carry on with our lives after the apocalypse was over. And the thought of letting the devil destroy the world and not letting Michael stop it didn't sit right with me. I told them I'd do it."

"Hey, they've got a great sales pitch, I'll give you that," Dean said. "I mean, hell, I was pretty much there when you were with us at Bobby's. And letting Lucifer destroy the world really is a worse plan than letting the two of them duke it out but we were just hoping to not let it come to that and Lucifer was mostly waiting around for the showdown or Sam's yes."

"And besides," Sam added. "You did agree to go along with it but what if you didn't? You saw how nasty Zachariah could get. They could have forced you to come back and used you to get to us anyway."

"Your friend put that thing on my ribs, though," Adam said. "If I hadn't told Zachariah where I was-"

"Hey, you ain't the only one those dicks have a way of getting to," Dean said. "They've have found a way. It's okay. So you made a mistake. They'd have probably gotten to you anyway and you didn't deserve what happened to you after that. You may not remember hell and I pray you never do but it still happened."

"I'm sorry," Sam said.

"Sorry," Adam repeated quizzically. "For what? You didn't kill me and you sure as hell didn't bring me back. I'll admit your whole 'say no to the angels and your mom and stick with us because brothers' shtick pissed me off, especially since you were basically holding me prisoner but that's water under the bridge. And you came for me."

"Of course we did," Sam said earnestly.

Dean snorted. "Some rescue that was."

"You tried, Dean," Adam said. "You knew it was a trap and you came anyway. Zachariah may have had a lot to say before I told him where I was about how you'd always choose each other first and leave me to rot-"

Dean winced and Sam had to look away.

"No, it's not like that," Adam said. "Zachariah may have said that then but afterwards he told me that he knew you would walk right into his trap because I was family. Maybe not close family but family enough. And you did. You even said it. You stood up to an angel who could break you in half just by thinking about it and you won. And you almost got me out. But Michael came and…he's an archangel. It wasn't your fault."

"Maybe that wasn't," Sam agreed. He hadn't been able to walk, much less help, and so Dean had had to support him to get him out of that building. If Michael hadn't interfered Adam would have been able to follow them right out. "But I pulled you into the cage with me."

"Yeah, well, I remember that," Adam said. "I can't pretend that I don't wish you hadn't because, even without remembering it, the thought that I spent five years – or however long it was down there – trapped in a cage with Lucifer and an angel I hope wouldn't hurt me but was part of a celebrity grudge match is kind of freaking me out. But you weren't trying to take me with you. You were just going to go yourself and leave Michael to do whatever he did when he wasn't fighting Lucifer. But he tried to stop you. He tried to pull you back up. And he had the strength of an archangel. If you hadn't pulled me down with you he never would have let you jump. And then we'd be right back to square one and the world would be destroyed."

"I…thank you," Sam managed to say when he could finally speak.

Adam shrugged. "Yeah, well, if I could actually remember anything about being in hell I might be less forgiving. As it is, my mom and I are alive again, though it may take some explaining, so I chalk my involvement in this up as a win."

"So what now?" Dean asked. "You're alive but you were gone for five years. People are going to ask questions and I can't imagine you haven't been dropped from school by now. You're probably legally dead."

"You could always stay with us," Sam offered. "I mean, I can't imagine that you want anything more to do with this after everything but the offer's there."

Adam smiled. "Thanks. I mean it, really. But the reason I didn't want Gabriel to just leave me here is because he didn't bring me back alone. He said you never mentioned anything about my mom and I get that. You never met her and you don't feel responsible for her like you felt responsible for me. But when he heard that the angels promised to bring her back and then things fell apart and never did so, he brought her back personally."

Dean's eyes widened. "Did you know he could do that?"

Sam shrugged. "He mentioned something about it but I never exactly got a demonstration."

"He said he took care of the details about being officially dead and if I ran into any more problems to just call him. He didn't give me his number or anything so I don't know if I'm just supposed to shout his name to the sky or call you guys or what but I guess I'll figure it out," Adam said.

"I don't know if calling for him would work but he's here often enough you could just try that," Dean said.

"I'm really happy for you, man," Sam said. "I mean, I was happy enough for you when I just thought you were alive but now that you finally got what you wanted all along and your mom's back? I just couldn't be happier."

Adam smiled again. "Thank you. I can't even believe it. I mean, I know that I was promised it and I was long past the point of skepticism but I can't believe it's finally true. I haven't even gotten the chance to talk to her. I just saw her for a minute before Gabriel sent her back home and said he'd send me back after we talked."

"Still looking to be a doctor?" Sam asked.

Adam tilted his head. "It's what I'm good at. I haven't really given it much thought but I think so, probably. I'm not touching hunting with a ten foot pole."

Sam laughed. "I've been there."

"And yet here you are."

Sam shrugged. "Yeah, well, the forces of hell were pretty keen to get me to become a demon blood junkie and set off the apocalypse and were also kind of stalking me so I didn't have a chance to really stay out. And it was how I grew up. Now I probably could, really, but Dean and I don't really trust other people to sort out the various calamities that happen every time we turn around."

"Now, Sam, that's a little unfair," Dean said, grinning. "They're usually about a year apart."

"Every year?" Adam couldn't believe it.

"If we're lucky," Sam said, sighing.

"So what's going on now?" Adam asked.

"Nothing," Sam said. "But give it another month or two. Besides, what else would we do?"

"We might still be officially dead or something," Dean said. "Or on the FBI's most wanted list. You should really ask Gabriel to take care of that for us, Sammy."

Sam stared at him. "Dude, he just brought Adam's soul back from the cage and brought him to life."

"That was Death," Dean argued. "And it's not like he seemed to be running low on power or anything! Come on, you say he keeps practically begging to do shit for you and he's been mooching off of us forever."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll at least bring it up, see if he's cool with it."

"Though, really, for two people hunted by the FBI until our deaths were faked we do not keep that low of a profile," Dean mused.

"Before we let you get back to the civilian life we really should give you a crash course about keeping yourselves safe," Sam said. "I mean, Gabriel or someone else probably could bring you back again but we don't exactly make a habit of reviving people."

"Unless they're us," Dean said.

Sam nodded. "Unless they're us. But there's usually some extenuating circumstances involved with that."

"Like the fact that we really don't want the other one to be dead."

"You're really not helping, Dean."

Dean crossed his arms. "I think I am."

"And either way, who wants to die again?"

Adam shuddered. "Not me. I've died way too many times, especially for someone my age. And getting eaten? Yeah, no thanks."

"Those ghouls were tied to that town so they found you that way," Sam said. "But I can't promise that no more creatures looking for vengeance against Dad will find you and think you're the softer target than Dean and me. Or people who find out that you're our brother and come after you for that. We can't force you to stay here-"

"Well we could," Dean muttered. "But hanging around us isn't exactly the key to longevity."

"But at the very least we should give you the basics about keeping yourself safe," Sam said. "You can call or something if you have any questions."

"How do you feel about keeping in touch?" Dean asked. "I mean, I know you said that Dad wasn't really your dad and that your mom was your main worry and I know we don't know each other very well yet but we're all a little short on family these days. I think that maybe it might not be a bad idea."

Adam looked like he was trying to fight a smile. "Well, I suppose that after walking into a trap to save me and then having me rescued from a prison that kept the freaking devil contained for who even knows how long I can give you a chance. Besides, I hear that apocalypse experiencing is a lot like troll fighting in the bonding department."

Sam laughed at that.

Dean made a disgusted noise. "Oh, I take it back. I take it all back. We do not need another nerd in this family."

"Hey, you recognized the reference," Adam said.

"No, I recognized that it was a reference," Dean disagreed. "Completely different."

Sam was about to say something when Castiel popped in, looking like he'd seen a ghost.

Dean's attention was immediately on him. "Cas, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, precisely," Castiel said but he made no move to explain further.

"Then what's going on?" Dean asked.

"Adam was released from the Cage."

Dean glanced at Adam who waved. "So we've noticed. Apparently Gabriel worked something out with Death."

"Kate Milligan was returned to life."

"We also heard about that," Sam said helpfully.

"Do you have anything new for us?" Dean asked.

"Gabriel did it."

"That's a no, then," Dean concluded.

Castiel shook his head and looked intently at Dean. "No, you misunderstand. I had wondered why I hadn't met your friend and now I know. How I couldn't have seen it…but then if I had seen him I would have known."

This was starting to freak Sam out. "Known what?"

"Gabriel isn't just a genie, Sam," Castiel said gravely.

"There was an angel here earlier," Sam said, a sudden suspicion growing in his mind. "Or at least he started to show up. Gabriel seemed to be expecting it and left to go talk to him or something."

Castiel nodded. "Raphael."

Dean stood up suddenly, knocking his chair over. "Raphael? Are you kidding me? We watched that douche die!"

"Did I not mention he was back?"

"You know damn well that you didn't," Dean said, glaring at him.

Sam nodded at Adam. "See? Right on schedule."

"How did he even come back?" Dean demanded.

"I'm not certain," Castiel said. "I do not believe that he knows, either, though if he did know I would not be the one he would confide in. Having mysteriously found myself resurrected often enough, I am not particularly concerned about that. What I do know is that he isn't trying to restart the apocalypse at present. That may change but I am keeping an eye on him. That isn't the issue here."

"Since when is Raphael being back not the issue here?" Dean demanded.

"Since it turns out that your 'genie' is actually an angel."

Sam had been wondering but the flat-out declaration still stunned him into silence.

Eventually, Adam broke the silence. "So you're telling me that Gabriel is actually…Gabriel. And this is some sort of bombshell?"

Dean gave him an annoyed look. "Oh, shut up. Besides, Sam's the one who spends all his time with him."

"Hey, he said he was a genie!" Sam defended himself. "And it's a very common name! He can rattle off a really long list of how many other people happen to share it!"

The thing was, Gabriel had known exactly what he was doing.

Making that deal with Death for Adam? Okay, maybe that one could have flown under the radar. But snatching the mother from heaven? Yeah, there was no way that that he was going to be able to hide it.

He didn't even really know why he did it. It's not like he owed the Winchesters anything. He saw how much the Adam thing was getting to Sam, though, even though he refused to talk about it. And even with saving Adam he didn't have to keep Michael's promise concerning Kate.

But he did.

And he knew that they would notice.

And sure, the apocalypse was on hold indefinitely but that had all happened years ago and he hadn't decided to come out of hiding then.

There was a reason he'd been avoiding Castiel so persistently that it had set off alarm bells in Sam and Dean.

He couldn't even say why he'd done it, really, but now he was going to have to face a bonafide family reunion.

"Gabriel," Raphael said. "You do not seem surprised to see me."

Gabriel shrugged. "I'm not, really. I figured I couldn't pull a stunt like this without attracting some attention and it seemed like it would probably be you. Or do you mean about the whole you dying bit?"

"I suppose I meant the dying part," Raphael said. "Since you did hear about that."

"Of course I heard! The last archangel standing biting the dust?" Gabriel asked rhetorically. "That's not the kind of thing that stays quiet."

"I was hardly the last," Raphael protested. "Michael and Lucifer are still alive, if trapped, and we all knew you were hiding out there somewhere."

"Yeah but we didn't really count, did we? I mean, we all know what it took to get the Cage open last time and I was quite pointedly not getting involved," Gabriel said.

Raphael was quiet for a long moment. "I do not wish to think of myself as the last archangel."

Gabriel shrugged again. "So don't. Technically you're not, we're all still alive. And you're even talking to me, another archangel, so there's little point in thinking of yourself as the only one while we are literally having a conversation."

"You may have a point."

"You know that I'm not exactly thrilled that you died and I definitely wasn't thrilled to hear about Castiel's little power trip afterwards but since you blew him up first and then he blew up again I think it all evens out," Gabriel said.

"Your support is truly touching, brother."

"Do you know how you came back?"

"No," Raphael said simply. "Castiel said something glib about how perhaps Lucifer brought me back but I think we all know what to make of that."

"Why would Castiel suggest-" Gabriel started to say.

"It is a long story," Raphael interrupted.

Gabriel figured he could always ask Castiel once he finally got around to seeing him.

"That doesn't really leave many options," he said instead.

Raphael bowed his head. "I thought He was dead."

"I never did," Gabriel replied. "Maybe I was just over-identifying but I always saw Him as making the same choice I did. Family fighting, everyone trying to kill each other, no way to stop it? Just take off."

"He could have stopped it."

"Well, perhaps," Gabriel conceded. "But only through force. Lucifer was past just listening to Dad because He was our father. And you know how Dad felt about forcing the issue."

"He did it when it was important," Raphael pointed out.

"Yeah and He hated every moment of it. Why do you think He loved the little humans so much?" Gabriel asked rhetorically.

"I'll confess I've often wondered that but I've never understood," Raphael said. "They're so weak and short-lived and flawed."

"Okay, how any of us can seriously call the humans flawed as if we're better when we've been unable to get past one family squabble for literally thousands of years and it's led to countless death, destruction, and time out time is beyond me," Gabriel said, shaking his head. "Seriously, there's a flaw for you: a complete lack of self-awareness."

"Lucifer's mess, and undoubtedly he is a very flawed creature as well, does not reflect on the rest of us," Raphael said stiffly.

"You guys are the ones who let him out of the box for round two."

"That was the demons and the Winchesters," Raphael insisted.

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, Raphael! Don't give me that! The demons wouldn't have gotten anywhere near a righteous man if you hadn't let them. And that's just the start."

"Killing Lucifer would be much more effective than trusting that he would be imprisoned forever and not somehow find a way out of the Cage on his own," Raphael said stubbornly.

Gabriel barked out a laugh. "Yeah, okay. Just keep telling yourself that."

"Other than the fact you see us as deeply flawed as well, what could the humans possibly have that we don't?" Raphael demanded.

Gabriel held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Hey, it's not like Dad and I ever talked about this. I'm just spitballing here, going off of what I know of Him and of His humans. But they've got more permeability than we do. Sure we live forever, barring accidents, but when we die…who knows what happens? I sure don't. You died. Do you?"

"No," Raphael admitted.

"And maybe it's like when humans come back from heaven or maybe we're just gone," Gabriel said. "But nothing can destroy a human soul. That's some favoritism right there. Humans are interesting. For a guy like Dad who has been around for literally forever, I'm sure that's key. It always kept me occupied. Then there's the fact that humans are so much better at that whole free will thing that we are that it's not even funny."

Raphael gave him a pointed look.

"Okay, fine, Lucifer was pretty much nothing but free will and I'd like to think us and Michael have it down, too. But all humans exercise free will. I heard that when Castiel tried to introduce the concept to the rank and file they asked him what they should use their free will to do. Not really a problem humans have."

"And just what," Raphael challenged, "is so special and desirable about free will? All it does is cause chaos. The humans make themselves miserable and so many of them freely will themselves into eternal damnation. And for what? Money, power, talent? Even the most selfless of them still trade a few years or decades of life for one human likely in heaven or headed there for an eternity of perdition and you cannot tell me that that is a rational prospect."

"I didn't say free will means always being smart," Gabriel retorted. "And I quite agree. It's a terrible trade but humans tend to be very in the moment. They're all 'I'm hurting now'. 'My loved one is dead or dying now.' Ten years is such a long time when it's just beginning and it's never less than a tenth of a human lifespan anyway."

"Then what makes it so superior? Even just look at us! We were happy and then Lucifer used his free will to rebel against Father and ruined everything. You used your free will to run away. Michael and I did what we could but eventually our free will led to the apocalypse-"

"What, do you regret that?" Gabriel interrupted.

"No," Raphael said. "But I do regret that it led to Michael's imprisonment and my own death. Without free will none of this would have happened."

"What, did Michael suddenly start believing in free will since I was gone?" Gabriel challenged.

Raphael sighed. "No, he did not."

"I wonder what he'd have to say should he ever get out of that Cage since that was most definitely not supposed to happen. But then how does he explain all of this?"

"You know how."

Gabriel nodded. "Right, right. It was all meant to be. We were all following the path laid out for us. Seems to me you're kind of scapegoating free will."

"You worship too much at its altar to believe it was anything but our own choices. Choices that, yes, Father clearly allowed us to make but sitting back and not stopping us from choosing our fates is hardly the same as choosing our fates for us," Raphael said.

Gabriel shrugged. "Well, you have me there. Free will just makes life more interesting and we can't blame free will itself for the choices that people make."

"Interesting?" Gabriel could hear the disdain dripping from Raphael's voice. "You really think that our father prefers these humans because they are interesting."

"Hey, as someone who chose to start the apocalypse out of sheer boredom, I wouldn't discount the importance of a few diversions. Things were much less fun before they came along." Gabriel held up a hand. "Yes, yes, I know we were happier. But it was less interesting just the same."

"It wasn't boredom," Raphael protested. "We were tired. We just wanted peace."

"If I were you I'd stick to the boredom excuse," Gabriel advised. "Makes you sound less pathetic."

Raphael shot him a withering glare.

"And humans also have this remarkable little ability called 'forgiveness'," Gabriel said. "I mean, I'm sure we're capable of it but you wouldn't know it from how we act."

"That's not true," Raphael objected. "I offered to forgive Castiel for rebelling against heaven if he fell in line behind me even though at our last meeting he had trapped me in a ring of holy fire, called me his little bitch, and I promised him that I would end him."

Gabriel couldn't help the little snort of laughter that came out at that. "Did he? Good for him."

"Gabriel."

"What? That's priceless!"

Raphael continued to look reprovingly at him.

Gabriel sighed. "Okay but tell me this. Given that a war broke out between your two factions, would you really say that was an offer of forgiveness or sheer pragmatism?"

"We do not hold grudges over the petty sorts of things that humans do," Raphael said. "Somebody mated with someone they were not supposed to. Somebody ruined an article of clothing. Somebody forgot to do something. No, our grudges are reserved for much more serious offences such as falling or rebellion."

"And yet I'm sure that even the most wronged human with the biggest tendency to hold grudges would get over it after literally thousands of years," Gabriel said. "Speaking of, how are you feeling about Lucifer?"

"You realize that less than five years ago he attempted to destroy the world yet again and would have killed Michael if he could have?" Raphael asked rhetorically.

"Still kind of your fault he even could and how did you feel about him before that?"

"Gabriel, if you can't hold a grudge forever about someone attempting to – and in some cases succeeding in – killing your brothers and destroying the world then what can you hold a grudge for?"

"Oh, don't even pretend that you wanted Earth to be saved or you care all that much about it," Gabriel said, scoffing. "And you should have thought about all the angel deaths before you let the apocalypse happen again."

"Are you trying to tell me that you don't hold grudges?" Raphael asked skeptically.

"Well, no, I can't quite do that," Gabriel admitted. "But you know what else I'm not? Human. They have flaws but they try to be better. I've seen people forgive things in a remarkably short period of time that I can't say I'd get over in less than a few centuries. If that. And don't tell me you don't see how that would appeal to dear old Dad."

"As long as Father is gone, His reasoning for preferring the humans are not important," Raphael said stiffly. Gabriel took that as a 'yes, I get it now but I still don't like it.'

"I think we all know that you guys wouldn't be so contemptuous of them and always call them mud monkeys and maggots and whatever else if they weren't the favorites and you could get over that for five seconds," Gabriel said in a sing-song voice.

"You may know what you wish. I agree to nothing of the sort."

"As you wish," Gabriel said. "As I was saying, I never thought that Dad was dead. He was just there one moment and gone the next. What could have possibly killed Him and been so quiet about it? Even if Death finally does reap Him like he always talks about doing, I'd expect some sort of sign of it. At the very least a courtesy call to let us know. I can't really imagine living in a Godless universe. No, Him just taking off seemed so much more likely. But then, it's what I did and I know He hated the fighting just as much as I did."

"I didn't want to believe that He would have just abandoned us like that," Raphael admitted softly. "But now I have no other choice. There is no one else who could have brought me back. And now I will have to admit that He brought Castiel back multiple times as well."

Gabriel thought he had some idea of just how difficult all of this was for Raphael to accept and respected that his brother was willing to face reality and not continue to deny the plain truth in front of him.

"But do you really feel abandoned?" Gabriel asked just as quietly. "Yes, now you know that Dad is still out there and can't be bothered to pick up a phone. Who knows if He'll ever come back?"

"Do you believe He will?"

"I…don't know," Gabriel admitted. "It's been such a long time. I don't know that I ever planned to come back and yet here we are. But we're not human. We measure time so much differently than they do. I suppose I do think that He'll be back eventually though we may have many thousands or even millions of years to wait before He does."

"That is something, I suppose. But why did you ask if I really felt abandoned? Of course I do. He is out there and He will not reveal Himself to us. He just disappeared."

"But He brought you back to life, Raphael," Gabriel said firmly. "That's more than He ever did for me. He hasn't gotten Michael out of that cage either despite the fact that really all the world needs for the apocalypse to be over is for Lucifer to stay down there. Him bringing you back is more than He's done for any angel save Castiel. Or maybe Joshua if He still really talks to him."

Raphael drew back. "I…had not considered it that way. Why do you suppose He did that? I'm hardly the only angel to have died. And why wait a few years to do so?"

Gabriel shrugged. "There's a reason the humans say that Dad moves in mysterious ways. I never understood Him even when He was around and I certainly wouldn't claim to so long after He left."

"He brought me back. He cannot think that I am beyond hope," Raphael said, almost to himself.

"Maybe it's an archangel thing," Gabriel offered. "He never killed Lucifer, either, just locked him up and probably hoped that he'd change his mind sooner or later. We were the only ones who even knew Dad. We were clearly His favorites. Maybe He just couldn't bear to lose us. As to why He waited so long to bring you back…maybe He just wanted heaven to sort itself out first before reintroducing such a volatile element. Now's a pretty good time to bring you back even if you still wanted to try and restart the apocalypse."

"I honestly wouldn't know how to start," Raphael admitted. "Lilith is dead. Can demons even be brought back to life to be re-killed and re-break the final seal? Would the seals have completely reset themselves so there would need to be a righteous man shedding blood in hell? Is there anything at all, save the intervention of our Father Himself, that could open the Cage now?"

"You've, uh, you've certainly put a lot of thought into this," Gabriel said worriedly.

Raphael smiled mirthlessly. "That was before."

"Before?" Gabriel prompted.

"I don't know why Father chose to bring me back. Perhaps you are right. But I would have to be blind not to see why He brought Castiel back and why He keeps bringing him back. I didn't want to see it before but now that He has brought me back I can't refuse to see it forever," Raphael said. "Castiel started dying and being revived the minute he moved against the apocalypse. All those angels dying and the one trying to stop it was the only one who was sent back? Anael tried, I suppose, but clearly preventing the Winchesters from being born by killing their parents was not what He wanted."

"So that's it?" Gabriel asked. "No more apocalypse?"

"I don't seem to be having much luck getting that back on track regardless," Raphael noted. "And I may not be Michael but I'm not Lucifer either. I may want the apocalypse to happen but if Father keeps sending these flashing neon signs that He disapproves of an apocalypse at this time then who am I to question Him?"

"So what now? You're back in heaven, you probably still hate Castiel, but you're done with the apocalypse? Where does that leave you?"

"I'll probably go back to being in charge of heaven, actually."

Gabriel snorted. "That's optimistic."

"Is it?" Raphael asked. "I'm obviously going to need to reach an accord with Castiel as he has proven he has no qualms about starting a civil war. But he doesn't wish to be a leader and his only real issue with me was my desire to restart the apocalypse."

"And maybe your whole anti-free will thing," Gabriel suggested.

"Perhaps," Raphael allowed. "I may need to be a little less harsh than Michael was with dissent. After all, with everything that's happened we can't really go back. Every angel has taken a vessel and had to pass as human for at least some of the time. They were largely on their own and they all had to choose sides once Castiel and I were out of the picture and the old ways may not work anymore."

Gabriel stared at him. "Who are you and what have you done to Raphael?"

"I'm a traditionalist not an idiot," Raphael said bluntly. "I still believe the way it was before Michael fell into the Cage and Castiel started causing problems was better. We weren't killing each other, no one had fallen from heaven, Metatron was off being paranoid but harmless…it was better. But that time is over and a great deal of that is Castiel's fault but he has clearly been singled out and so I must simply do the best I can to deal with this new reality."

"Huh. I guess you might be leadership material after all."

"After all?" Raphael frowned at him. "All these factions…things may have settled down but the factions started up once I was gone. Coming back, with the way none of these faction leaders can harm me, it will bring peace. You know it will."

Gabriel inclined his head. "Yeah. Poor Castiel, free will is just not a concept that these people want to get."

"I think we've more than discussed me," Raphael said.

"Oh? Was there something else you wanted to discuss then?" Gabriel asked politely.

"How is it that you came to know the Winchesters?" Raphael asked. "The last time I saw you you were off masquerading as some trickster or another. Loki, if I'm not mistaken."

Gabriel sighed, knowing that there was really no way he was going to get out of having this conversation.

"Yeah, Loki. That was fun, by the way, until you and Michael had to go and ruin it."

"Ruin it?" Raphael repeated. "We didn't 'ruin' anything. We had barely even caught a glimpse of you before you disappeared again!"

"Okay, fine, maybe I just didn't give you a chance to," Gabriel conceded. "But let's be honest. What would have happened if I had stayed?"

Raphael blinked at him. "Well Michael and I would have had some pointed questions about just what you thought you were doing slumming it with the pagan gods. We would have actually been happy to see you despite it all as we were terribly worried when you went missing in the first place hence our efforts to find you. We would have tried to convince you to do your duty and return with us to heaven but it is not as though if you refused we could have forced you or we would have cast you out like we did Lucifer. Your little runaway stunt was immature and inappropriate but hardly held the same weight as Lucifer's crimes."

"Really," Gabriel said skeptically. "You would have just left it alone if I insisted."

"Why is that so difficult to believe?"

"You've killed angels for less, Raphael."

"The higher in rank an angel is the more leeway they are given," Raphael replied. "That is how it's always been. If anyone other than one of the four of us had done what Lucifer had done they would have long-since been killed."

"Yay for blatant favoritism I guess," Gabriel said, rolling his eyes.

"It just seems a little absurd to complain about being the beneficiary of an unequal system," Raphael noted.

"I'm just still annoyed that you two tracked me down in the first place," Gabriel admitted.

"Would you have rather we simply not care that you left? That you could just leave us and we moved on with our lives?"

"Well kind of, yeah!" Gabriel burst out.

Raphael gave him an unimpressed look. "Gabriel, really. I know you better than that. You would be even more upset had we done nothing and started going off about how we don't really care about you and it's all about Michael and Lucifer and their destiny."

Well he had him there. This was the problem with spending time with people who actually knew you, he supposed. "Just because that happens to be true doesn't make it any less annoying that you two showed up!"

"But you didn't even give a chance to do anything," Raphael said. "We were concerned and you did not even pause to tell us to leave you alone, though we got the memo, before taking off. You chose to abandon your life as Loki and there's little point in blaming us for it."

"Oh, don't you get it?" Gabriel asked impatiently. "I had to leave. Archangels don't just show up at pagan shindigs like that."

Raphael gave him a pointed look.

"Okay, fine, other than me but that's because I was pretending not to be an archangel at the time," Gabriel amended. "How was I going to explain that? You two made no efforts to hide what you were."

"We never do," Raphael pointed out. "Why would we? And it is not as though you communicated your desire that we disguise our presence if we were going to come."

"The jig was up," Gabriel said. "Especially if you two made it clear you were there to talk to me. Even if you didn't out me in front of my friends, what could I say to explain that? It was never going to work out. I had to leave. And since I was mad at you for ruining Asgard for me and didn't exactly want to talk to you two in the first place, I ditched you and left."

"You keep talking about how you were avoiding us and did not want to be found," Raphael said. "What I never understood was the why. If we hadn't found you on Asgard and watched you flee I might have thought you dead."

"We've already discussed your bad habit of assuming that people are dead prematurely," Gabriel said primly.

"You act as though people just leave my presence and I start giving them up for dead!"

"Well I wasn't going to say anything but now that you mention it…"

"Father just took off, no warning and no explanation. All sorts of terrible and unprecedented things were happening and there was no sign of Him. After all this time, there's still been no sign until very recently when He started aiding the Winchesters and bringing angels back to life," Raphael said icily. "And then you! The last time I saw you you were mocking me for being too grim and serious and making jokes about family squabbles not being the end of the world!"

"What was I supposed to say?" Gabriel demanded. "I tried to talk you all out of the whole all-out war thing but the three of you were the only ones even worth talking to because everyone else was just following orders."

"Michael and I were just following orders," Raphael insisted. "From God himself before He disappeared. We were doing what we had to do."

"I think you'll find you really weren't. You might have been told to stop Lucifer, so was I, but clearly nothing happened when I just walked away. You had a choice and you made it."

"And what if you're right?" Raphael challenged. "What if Michael and I had just stopped fighting? If you want to be mad at somebody for tearing us all apart, be mad at Lucifer. If he had stopped then no matter what Michael or I might have wanted we would have had to stop as well. But if we quit opposing him then he still would have wiped out your precious humanity."

"Which you care so much about," Gabriel said, rolling his eyes. "Please, Raphael, the fact that opposing him happened to save the humans played so little a part in your motivation it might have actually been a motivating factor towards doing nothing and just letting Lucifer have at it. And trust me, I'm plenty angry at Lucifer, too, but I'm not talking to him right now. Who knows when I'll even see him again? I certainly have no intention of dropping by hell and saying hi."

"So you couldn't stop the fighting. That's no reason to just leave everything with not a word of explanation!"

"I sort of thought telling everybody they needed to stop and then, when no one did, leaving was explanation," Gabriel defended himself. "What would have happened if I'd said goodbye? You wouldn't have left me alone, none of you would have, and it would have been impossible to sneak off."

"You could have at least left a note behind."

Gabriel sighed heavily. "How do you have this sort of conversation in a note? And I know that telling you that you were all making it impossible for me to stay so I had to leave would have just hurt you and, believe it or not, that's not what I wanted."

"If you didn't want to hurt us then you really should have thought of that before leaving on top of our Father's loss and Lucifer's imprisonment," Raphael said coldly.

Another sigh. "It was the lesser evil, believe me. Forcing you to face why wouldn't have changed anyone's heart or mind and it just would have made it worse. You were supposed to just let me go."

"I think you knew better than that," Raphael said. "It took us centuries to find you but we did eventually. We tried to find you again but lately we haven't had a lot of time to look." He looked away. "Lately I haven't had a lot of time to look, when I've even been alive, and if you hadn't revealed yourself I might never have found you."

"Aw, don't beat yourself up about it," Gabriel said. "You weren't supposed to. I guess one of the reasons I was so annoyed you found me when you did was because…I didn't just head to Earth and decide I should go be a part of the Norse mythology, you know? I hardly knew anything about pagans and I had the same sort of revulsion towards them that you all do."

"You hardly seemed repulsed when we found you," Raphael said dryly.

Unbidden, a smirk made its way across Gabriel's face. "Kali. Seeing as how I just left right in the middle of things there and then never contacted her again, she probably still wants to kill me. That and for being an angel. She hates angels. I should probably clear that up now that I guess I'm out of hiding."

Raphael looked very much like a headache was coming on. "Gabriel, why in the world would you be interested in a woman who hates angels?"

"Ask me how I was feeling towards everyone back then," Gabriel retorted. "You know, when I refused to have anything to do with you lot for literally thousands of years."

Raphael just shook his head and sighed.

"I just wandered around for a while. I did play at being human, even, for a bit but their lack of ability to teleport combined with the shoddy state of their technology at the time was really not a great combination and so I decided to move on to supernatural entities. I tried a few identities out and then I met Thor and he tried to hit me with a giant hammer so I turned him into a frog for three weeks. When I finally got around to changing him back he thought the whole thing was a great story and invited me to have a drink and then I followed him back to Asgard and I just sort of never left. Not until you and Michael showed up, that is. The Norse gods had so much potential, really, but they were all in desperate need of a trickster. And it turned out it wasn't even that far away from my original role."

"You're…going to need to explain that one to me, I'm afraid," Raphael said, clearly not making the connection.

"It's not the most obvious follow-up, I know," Gabriel conceded. "But as a trickster I got to amuse myself doing pretty much whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. And part of the perks of getting away from everyone was that suddenly I had no more rules and no one to tell me I had to do this or not do that and I took that and ran with it. And part of being a trickster is finding unworthy mortals and teaching them an often hilarious, always painful, and sometimes fatal lesson. Hardly the kind of judgment Dad had me doing but it was still something. It wasn't perfect but I was really starting to get into the role, you know? And then you ruined it."

"You're going to have to let this go," Raphael said bluntly. "This was a very long time ago and we did not know."

"Don't even start with me on letting things go," Gabriel said. "Not until you get over the whole Lucifer thing."

"Are you seriously comparing Michael and I accidentally revealing you to be an archangel – or at least if you had stayed – to everything he's done?"

"Yes."

"That is ridiculous."

Gabriel shrugged. "I don't care."

"What happened after you left?"

"I tried on a few more supernatural identities, spent some time posing as a human, and finally I decided to be a genie in a lamp," Gabriel explained, bracing himself for the inevitable reaction.

"You…" Gabriel had rarely seen Raphael at such a loss for words. "You became a genie. One of those that are enslaved to a lamp and forced to cater to the whims of whatever mortal happens to possess the lamp?"

"It sounds crazy, I know, but-"

"You're an archangel, Gabriel," Raphael interrupted. "You are one of the most powerful being in the universe. And you spent who even knows how much time at humanity's beck and call? Lucifer would have spontaneously combusted if he knew."

"We could always not tell him?" Gabriel offered. "Especially seeing as how he's a bit hard to reach right now."

"Why would you do it?" Raphael asked. "Can you truly have changed so much, brother?"

Gabriel decided to take pity on him. He really did look distraught at the very idea and Raphael's relationship with humanity was tenuous at best and almost entirely unwilling. "It's really not what you think. You see, I didn't actually make myself into a genie. I just created a genie-ish space connected to a lamp where I hung out. When I wasn't off doing other things. And whenever someone rubbed the lamp I was aware of it and popped in to play genie. But I didn't have to do anything. I just chose to play the part. And I could choose to grant the wishes any way I wanted to. Or not at all but where's the fun in that? In a way, it wasn't all that different from being a trickster actually."

"But still, you enjoyed this?"

Gabriel shrugged. "It was something to do. I don't know how Sam and Dean came to get the lamp but they did and the very first thing Sam wished for was a quite loophole-free ban on me in any way harming anyone I knew he cared about."

"Well he isn't a complete fool for all he killed Lilith while trying to stop Lucifer from walking free," Raphael allowed.

"I know, right? It was fascinating. And I was already interested in him once I found out who he was. But then he immediately goes and wishes me free? I mean, it obviously had no effect on me since I wasn't in any way not free but I've known a lot of humans over the years and nothing like that had ever happened before. I hung around for a while, met the brother, annoyed the brother, dodged my brother they kept trying to introduce to me, and then…well, Adamgate."

"Why did you choose to free him? And why revive the mother?"

Gabriel started pacing. "I couldn't tell you, I really couldn't. It was just a whim, I guess. I've grown far too used to acting on my impulses and not stopping and analyzing them to death. I did feel bad for him. I know what it's like to be caught between Michael and Lucifer and I'm not anywhere near as vulnerable as a human is. Not to mention that they both give a crap about me and so at least make some sort of effort to not have me as collateral. And he didn't deserve to be down there forever. And it was upsetting Sam which really wasn't doing me any favors. But I shouldn't have had to be the one to bring back Kate Milligan. Michael promised Adam."

Raphael's grace flared and his jaw worked. "And Michael would have done as he promised but Sam Winchester, the boy you don't like seeing upset, dragged him down to hell."

"Well if Michael couldn't do it and you had no interest in keeping our brother's promises I figured I might as well," Gabriel said, keeping his voice nice and even. "Do you really blame Sam for what happened?"

"It doesn't seem an unreasonable place to assign blame," Raphael replied. "Dean Winchester may have headed to Stull Cemetery with the intention of stopping the apocalypse but the only way he had to do that was to inspire Sam to wrestle back control of his body from Lucifer. And it shouldn't have even been possible but he did. Not only did he stop the apocalypse by jumping into the Cage while Lucifer was sharing his body but he dragged Michael along, too! Who else should I blame?"

"I suppose blaming the people who made that necessary is out of the question?" Gabriel asked rhetorically.

Raphael glared at him. "Gabriel. I'm serious."

"So am I. You really think that anyone would want to consign themselves to an eternity in hell – which Sam truly thought he was doing – especially knowing he'd be trapped with two archangels who wanted to fight and blamed him? And that he had condemned an innocent, and his own blood at that, to the same fate? But we always knew that Lucifer wouldn't stop. And when Michael attempted to stop Sam from jumping in, Sam had to act quickly to reach the Cage. Do I wish it hadn't have happened? Of course. But do I really see what else Sam could have done once they got there? Not really. He was a human in a human body trying to thwart not one but two archangels."

"And, what? That means I should forgive him?" Raphael asked contemptuously.

"Of course I'm not saying that. Hell, I doubt they've forgiven you for the things you've done," Gabriel said placatingly. "But don't get on my case about spending time with him. I don't blame him for what happened."

Raphael glared at him for a long moment before seeming to collapse in on himself. "I agreed to not try to restart the apocalypse because I understand now that it's not what Father wanted," he said tiredly. "And as long as Lucifer refuses to change that means leaving him where he is. And he didn't change in all the thousands of years he was there the first time so I don't see him changing now."

"You don't know that," Gabriel said though honestly he wasn't sure he truly believed any differently than his brother. "This time Michael's in there with him. Maybe now that they can just talk without any of that other stuff getting in the way they'll be able to work it out."

"Michael is barely any fonder of humanity than Lucifer is," Raphael pointed out. "And Sam defied and trapped them."

That was a very valid point. "Lucifer always insists it's not really about humanity anyway."

"Lucifer also insists that he was just punished for loving Father too much," Raphael countered.

"That is also an unfortunate truth," Gabriel conceded. "But if he's going to go around pretending that, really, it's not about his obvious middle child syndrome then he's got to let the Earth-destroying thing go."

"Do you really think he'd ever change?" Raphael asked suddenly.

Gabriel knew what he was thinking. Lucifer was alive now, yes, but if things had gone as they were supposed to have gone he would not be. And if he eventually did change that made the planned outcome horrific and Lucifer's death unnecessary.

"I don't know. I hope so," Gabriel said quietly. "It's not like anyone's in a hurry."

"But even if he does change, he's still stuck in that Cage," Raphael pointed out. "And, again, I agreed to leave the apocalypse be but…Michael is in there, Gabriel. How am I supposed to just leave him there?"

Michael and Lucifer had always been the closest to each other. Gabriel and Lucifer had a very strong connection, though, that had hurt like hell when Lucifer had rebelled. Maybe that was why he had been the one to leave. He could never follow Lucifer but he had been far closer to him than he had with the brothers who had stayed. Michael and Raphael had been just as close as he and Lucifer and being the only two archangels around for thousands of years, especially with God missing, would have only served to bring them closer together.

And now Raphael had to live with knowing that Michael was down in the Cage with Lucifer and there was nothing he could do about it.

"They're alive, Raphael," Gabriel said gently, praying he'd find the right words. "They may go at it for a while but fighting in hell was never part of their destiny and they won't be settling anything from the Cage. I can't see them doing that forever. They aren't being tortured. I know the isolation would have been terrible for Lucifer before but they have each other. In time…maybe this really is the best chance for them to come to an accord."

"And what if they do?" Raphael pressed. "We still won't be able to free them. We'll never even know. Maybe they already worked it out."

Gabriel sighed. "I don't know, Raphael, I really don't. I guess we'll just have to trust that Dad is keeping an eye on the situation and He'll let them out if it's safe to do so. Or we can go pester Death occasionally and see if they've made any progress. But of course we'd have to proceed with incredible caution there. He sees us as more important than the humans, sure, but it's like the difference between an ant and a fish."

They lapsed into silence then.

Eventually, Raphael was the one to break it. "You said something earlier, about seeing that pagan goddess again."

Gabriel grinned. "You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to that."

"You said now that you're out of hiding."

Gabriel frowned, unsure of where he was going with this. "Yeah. Why?"

"Does that mean that you're done running?"

"Kind of, yeah? I mean, what is there to run from?" Gabriel asked. "The fighting, for better or for worse, is over."

"But will you come back then?" Raphael asked.

Gabriel winced. "Way to put a guy on the spot!"

"I need to know, Gabriel," Raphael said unapologetically.

Gabriel shifted awkwardly. "It depends on what you mean by 'back'. I'm willing to openly go by the Archangel Gabriel again. In most situations. Some of them I may need an alias for. Will I start talking to our brothers again? Why not? Of course I'm going to keep talking to you. I don't think I'll completely avoid heaven but just try and give me some sort of real responsibility. I dare you."

"Perhaps we should give you a period of adjustment," Raphael suggested.

"Better make it a long one," Gabriel advised. "Look, I can't say what the future will hold. Maybe eventually I will help you run heaven or whatever. If angels start killing each other again then I'll try to stop it before hitting the road again. But that's really all I can promise."

"I know," Raphael said. "It's been a long time. Everything's up in the air. But I'd rather have you back on your terms than not at all."

"Well someone got sentimental," Gabriel quipped.

"I've been called worse," Raphael said, unperturbed. "For what it's worth, even though you just completely skipped the apocalypse and weren't there when we needed you, I am glad that at least one of my brothers is alright."

"You have literally thousands of other brothers who are just fine."

"You know what I mean."

And he did, really. It was a little ridiculous that after all this time Raphael was still largely indifferent to the rank and file but Gabriel would be lying if he said he didn't benefit from it. He would not last long if he was actually held to the same standards as the normal angels.

And now that he had had a surprisingly successful reunion with Raphael, he just needed to figure out how to have this same conversation with Sam. Though hopefully much, much shorter.

Gabriel returned after a few more hours, told Adam to say his goodbyes, then whisked him off to parts unknown. Or, well, he probably just took him home.

They had tried to question him but he had ignored them and vanished.

Sam was pretty sure he'd said he'd be back. Or maybe he had just told Adam that and he had returned to take him home. But surely he wouldn't just do something like this and then leave forever, right?

Yeah he had finally gotten Sam to admit to wanting something, even if it was big and impossible, and he had actually managed to make it come true. Why would he leave after that?

Well, yeah, Sam knew he was an angel now (and man did that make that whole 'Gabriel? Like the archangel?' conversation they'd had when they first met really weird) but Gabriel seemed to expect that that would come out. He wouldn't just cut and run because of that, would he?

But then, according to Castiel Gabriel had left heaven a long time ago and nobody had had any idea what had happened to him since then. Not until he brought back Adam's mother.

Sam's ponderings on the subject were interrupted by the arrival of Gabriel himself. He appeared under the bed, stuck his head out, and in a theatrically loud whisper asked, "Is the coast clear?"

Sam couldn't help but smile. "If you mean 'is anyone else in your bedroom' then the answer is no. It's just us."

Gabriel crawled out from under the bed and then flopped down on top of it. "So. I guess we should probably talk."

"You told me you weren't that Gabriel."

"Actually, I think you'll find that I just told you that there were a lot of people named Gabriel and listed off some of them," Gabriel said. "And I told you I wasn't trying to convince you I was that Gabriel and doubted that I ever would but didn't completely close the door on that possibility."

"But that was pretty much a no," Sam said.

Gabriel shrugged. "What can I say, Sammy? I was in hiding. You're lucky you got that much."

"Why exactly did I get that much?" Sam wondered. "I mean, what kind of person in hiding goes by their real name and doesn't even completely deny being themselves?"

Gabriel sat up and pointed at himself. "This person."

Sam gave him a look.

"I happen to like my name," Gabriel told him. "And, judging by the conversation I just had with Raphael, literally no one would have ever thought to look for me as a genie. Occasionally people ask about the angelic name but it's never too hard to get them to drop it. Did you really expect me to be an angel?"

"Well, no," Sam admitted. "But now I feel like I should have."

"You weren't supposed to," Gabriel said.

"Does this mean that I can pray to you?" Sam asked curiously.

Gabriel got a very interesting expression on his face. "Probably. Technically. I'm pretty sure anything you might have to tell me isn't the stuff of normal prayers, though."

"You have clearly never witnessed Dean praying to Cas," Sam replied.

"Is that a euphemism?"

Sam just rolled his eyes. "How did an archangel end up pretending to be a genie?"

Gabriel snorted at that.

"What?" Sam asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious. "I've met the other three, you know. That wasn't really something they'd go in for."

"No, I know that," Gabriel said. "Which was part of why it was such a brilliant disguise. It's just that Raphael thought I actually turned myself into one. Thanks for having a bit more faith in me than my own brother."

Sam wasn't quite sure what to say to that so he kept quiet.

"As to how that happened…well, you know the story with Michael and Lucifer and all that. We really don't need to go over it again. But what you have to understand is that they're not just members of my same species. They're my family. And, as an archangel, Michael and Lucifer were closer to me than to most. And they just wouldn't stop fighting. I don't know if you know what that's like or not. It wasn't just arguments, either. My family was killing each other. I couldn't just stay and watch so I left."

No, Sam had never been the one to watch the fights. Dean had been the peacemaker, as thankless a role as that had been, between him and their father though it had never turned lethal. And he and Dean had had their share of serious fights over the years but he was a participant and not an observer. But he thought he could sort of see it. How would he handle something like that, especially if he couldn't stop it?

No, he wasn't going to judge Gabriel for that.

"I actually was a trickster first. Well…I settled on being a trickster first," Gabriel corrected himself. "I've been a lot of things, or pretended to be at least, over the years. But somehow or other Michael and Raphael tracked me down so I had to leave."

"They were looking for you?" Sam asked, surprised. He had never even known that Gabriel was missing until Dean had offhandedly asked when they could expect Gabriel to come and harass them since he'd already met the other three.

Gabriel looked almost insulted at that. "Of course they were. Family. And why do you think I had to go into hiding? There's no point in hiding if no one's looking."

"I guess that makes sense," Sam agreed. "Sorry, I didn't mean that to come out like it did. It's just that we met a lot of angels and Cas is the only one who mentioned you and that was when we asked."

"Is that really so surprising, though?" Gabriel asked rhetorically. "I mean, it happened a long time ago and Castiel is probably the only angel you guys were really on good terms with before you met me. And sharing family secrets? Not really something my family was ever big on."

Sam nodded. "Why did you have to leave just because your brothers found you? Couldn't you just get away from them and keep being a trickster?"

Gabriel looked puzzled for a moment before his expression cleared. "Ah, right, I didn't specify. I wasn't just a trickster. I was Loki. They found me when I was on Asgard. It would have been impossible to keep the cat in the bag."

"Would you have wanted to?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Gabriel asked, surprised. "I liked being Loki."

"It's just…" Sam trailed off, trying to organize his thoughts. "I've read a lot of Norse mythology. The other gods…don't seem to…like you, exactly."

"You mean because of the whole Ragnarok and the face dripping acid thing and the mouth sewn shut and all that?" Gabriel asked, waving a hand lazily.

Sam blinked at him. "Well…yeah, actually."

"Well none of it is true," Gabriel said. "They loved me. I was awesome. But then I had to just take off and never talk to any of them again and the fact I was lying to them about who I was more than likely came out and they were the ones telling the stories. I don't mind."

"But why a genie?"

Gabriel shrugged. "It was fun. It was kind of like being a trickster, which I loved, except my targets came to me."

"Targets?" Sam repeated. "Do you mean your…I don't want to say 'master' because, well, the whole slavery thing and you weren't even really a genie but you know what I mean."

"Them and the people around them," Gabriel confirmed.

"Are you saying that I had been more of a dick you might have killed me or 'taught me a lesson' even with my wish?" Sam demanded.

Gabriel seemed to be considering it. "You? I wouldn't have killed you. Maybe not even have taught you a lesson, I don't know. It all depended on how much of a threat to my secrecy you guys were and just how much of a dick you were."

"I can't believe you."

"I only go after those who deserve it," Gabriel said unrepentantly. "Besides, you have a body count, too!"

"We only-" Sam cut himself off.

Gabriel smirked. "Go after those who deserve it? Huh."

"I'm sure what that we have a very different idea of what deserving it means," Sam said, trying not to sound too accusing.

Gabriel shrugged. "Probably. But who is to say your way is automatically better than my way?"

"Well for one thing, we don't go after dicks," Sam said. "Well…not just for being dicks. They have to be actively hurting people. We've actually killed some pretty damn amiable creatures because we had to protect people."

"And I don't kill people for jaywalking," Gabriel said. "But really, let's not fight about this now. I'm sure we'll have plenty of time later for you to judge my life and my choices."

Despite himself and the fact that they were probably going to have that fight more than once, Sam did perk up a little at the implication that Gabriel would be sticking around.

"So. Raphael. He's back."

"He is indeed," Gabriel confirmed. "I take it Castiel hadn't told you?"

"No he did not. And Dean was not happy about that."

"He probably didn't want you guys getting upset when it's really not a problem," Gabriel theorized. "But then, ask me when the last time I actually saw Castiel was."

"Not a problem?" Sam repeated. "Gabriel, when Raphael died he was fighting a civil war against Cas, tried to become the new God, and wanted to restart the apocalypse."

"And from what I've heard Castiel ended up becoming the new God instead. And it was his plan. Yet you seem to have forgiven him," Gabriel pointed out. "Look, he really hates you."

"Hates me? Why?"

"Well he was pretty pro-apocalypse and he loves Michael and, well…you know," Gabriel said, shrugging.

"Ah."

"But we don't know what happened to bring him back. He thinks Dad brought him back."

"I thought he thought God was dead," Sam said.

"He did. But then he came back mysteriously. And since Daddy also got you and Dean away from Lucifer when the last seal broke, cured your demon blood addiction, and keeps bringing Castiel back to life, now that Raphael has accepted that He's still around, he's kind of taken a hint."

"So…that's it?" Sam couldn't believe it. "Raphael wanted the apocalypse but God doesn't so he's backing off?" Not that Sam exactly believed that God didn't want the apocalypse. He may have lent a hand but he didn't show up in person and Joshua had made it clear how little his problem God considered it. But if that was what it took to stop Raphael from starting another civil war and trying to free Lucifer and Michael again then so be it.

"Of course," Gabriel said as if it were obvious. "Raphael doesn't talk about being the good son the way Michael always used to but it's still very important to him."

"I'm glad that things seemed to go okay between you two," Sam said. "It did go okay, didn't it?"

Gabriel smiled. "Yeah, Sam. It's all good."

"I'm glad. I know I didn't exactly ask you to but you'd been in hiding for ages. And you didn't take the chance to come back once the apocalypse was over. But you wanted to help me and that ended up costing you your anonymity and I just…thank you."

Gabriel made an annoyed noise. "Oh, don't tell me you're going to start feeling guilty about that! I made my choice, Sam, and I'm sticking by it. If I thought I'd regret it so soon I wouldn't have done it. And, strictly speaking, all I had to do was leave if I didn't want to be found. Nothing is stopping me from leaving again right now and never being seen again. Or at least until Raphael can track me down again seeing as how I'm a softer target than Dad."

A sudden fear gripped Sam then. "You're not-"

"No, of course not! I'm trying to tell you not to feel guilty about something that makes zero sense for you to feel guilty about and to let you know that you didn't trap me. I could leave if I wanted to. But I don't."

Sam smiled at that. "I'm glad then. Because what you did for Adam and his mom was just really…I guess his mom was okay up in heaven but I knew exactly how 'not okay' Adam was. And I had kind of just resigned myself to that never being fixed but you did fix it. So thank you."

"Stop, you're embarrassing me," Gabriel complained but he was grinning.

"So what are you going to do now?" Sam asked. "Are you going to go home and be responsible?"

Gabriel laughed. "As if. I have no reason to stay away now and I have a lot of lost time to make up for with my brothers but I did not sign up to actually do things. If it's an emergency, we'll talk, but they're going to have to give me a couple centuries to work up to anything else."

"And does Raphael know that?"

"I told him I needed time!" Gabriel said innocently.

"And does he know that's the time scale you're thinking in?" Sam pressed.

"He'll figure it out," Gabriel said blithely. "There are some non-angels I should probably reconnect with, too. Maybe scour the world for some evildoers and go all trickster on their ass. You know, to give you ammunition for that fight we're going to have."

Yeah, they'd definitely need to talk about that.

"And what about me and Dean?" Sam asked. "And I know you technically already know Cas but after all the effort we put into trying to introduce you you could at least let us reunite you."

"Hm, I guess that depends on you," Gabriel said. "You may not know how to banish a free genie that wants to hang out but I know you can get rid of an angel."

"Maybe I don't want to."

"Maybe Dean really really does."

Sam shrugged. "He'll live. So how about it?"

Gabriel pretended to consider it. "I don't know how much free time I'll have now that I'm going to have to basically have a long drawn-out reunion with everybody I've ever known but this place kind of grew on me. And I do like annoying Dean."

"And I happen to be here, too."

Gabriel smirked. "I mean, if I have to deal with your presence then I guess I will. Or when I pop up to annoy Dean when you guys are on the road. Or during a hunt. Or whenever."

"Far be it from me to stop anybody from aiding in my sacred younger brother duty of annoying Dean," Sam said. "You know, I really had my doubts about this whole genie thing but I think this has all worked out pretty well."

"It has," Gabriel agreed. "Which is truly a miracle and one more sign that Dad is alive and well, if you ask me, because you are seriously the worst genie master I've ever seen."

"Are you never going to let this go?"

"That is the nice thing about being angel," Gabriel declared. "You humans might be great and all with your 'forgiveness' and stuff but I'm an angel. I'm way too awesome to ever let it go."

"I don't think 'awesome' is the right word," Sam said.

"I'm pretty sure it is."

Fine, maybe Sam thought that, too.