My Brothers Keeper: Ch 21

For a few seconds Dean wasn't quite sure what to say as he stared at the once mighty angel now hanging like a limp ragdoll from the ropes binding him. Gabriel was tethered hand and foot with twine that had obviously been soaked in something unpleasant and the smell of it wafted throughout the room with a bitter tang that made Dean's nose burn. The strands were all but black and the firelight reflected across them in a sticky crimson shine. Dean grimaced as he took in the awkward way the angel was dangling, as if all his strength were simply gone, though he couldn't be sure if that was from the prison he was in or the days of abuse at Legion's hands. The fact that the angel should have easily been able to break the flimsy bonds trapping him though hinted that whatever they were coated in was the likely culprit for Gabriel's current weakness. "Excuse the expression, but you look like hell," Dean said with a note of sympathy.

Gabriel shot him a displeased look. "Gee, THANKS, Dean. I'll tell you what, how about we trade places and YOU hang up here for a few days to see how YOU look." Hezrial cut off whatever reply Dean might have had as he rushed forward and began looking about frantically for a way to stamp out the flames keeping him from his brother, his frustration showing clearly in the deep frown adorning his face when no obvious solution presented itself.

"Hez," Dean said as he stepped up to the fire, "Go see if you can find something to put this out or at least give us a way across. I'll get Mr. Sunshine here down." He motioned toward the other angel who shot him a less than polite gesture with what little strength remained in his fingers. Hezrial looked torn for a moment as he glanced between where his brother was still dangling and the hunter telling him to leave but he seemed at last to decide on trusting Dean and fled the room at top speed without another word. Dean turned back to find Gabriel grinning at him. "What?" he said mistrustfully.

"You got a plan for getting me down, right? Well, don't leave me hanging," Gabriel said cheerfully. The archangel smiled even wider, obviously far too amused by his own joke as Dean groaned and slapped his forehead.

"Dude, you make ONE more bad pun like that and I will LEAVE your ass here," the hunter growled as he took a few steps back.

"Can ya blame me?" Gabriel retorted, "I've been stuck in here by myself for the last five days with no one else to talk to. And let me tell you, as an angel, that counting bricks to pass time thing doesn't work either. I already knew how many ounces of mortar were used in building this room the instant I woke up. Being powerful has its drawbacks. I got so bored I started I started having conversations with a roach." The angel glanced over at one of the walls, presumably looking in the direction his temporary companion usually came from. "I call him 'Skippy'," he said cheerfully.

Dean stopped and shot the archangel a look that said he seriously doubted the being's sanity before going back to what he was doing with a shake of his head. He squinted as he gauged the distance and then took a running leap over the flames, letting out a hiss when he felt the heat of them sear along his backside upon landing. He scrambled a few steps forward and came face to face with one terribly entertained angel that was trying and failing to stifle down a snicker. "Well it's a good thing I'm not counting on you for gracefulness," Gabriel said with open sarcasm.

Dean glared at him and yanked his knife free from his belt. He wasn't sure what the substance on the ropes was but he was sure he didn't want to touch it. "Do you EVER shut up?" he snarled as he cut through the first set pinning Gabriel's right wrist to the iron star.

"Oh right," the angel quipped, "This from the guy that could make snarkiness an Olympic sport. HEY! OW!" Gabriel flinched as Dean 'accidentally' nicked him. The hunter threw a measured smile at the other man and promptly ignored the scowl he was rewarded with. In the next instant the twine gave way and Gabriel's arm flopped uselessly to his side, his whole body sagging at an even more awkward angle now that his bindings were uneven. "Dean, I swear if you cut loose my other hand before you free my legs, I will smite the crap out of you first chance I get." Gabriel managed to peer up at the hunter in time to see a thoughtful look pass over his face.

"That WOULD be pretty freakin' hilarious," Dean said with far too much enthusiasm. The glare that was shot in his direction from the angel at his mercy reminded him that it was a temporary situation at best and that the repercussions of his actions wouldn't be worth it in the end…even if it would be amusing to see an angel faceplant. He sighed and let the idea go in favor of cutting free one of Gabriel's legs instead. In short order he managed to sever all of the bindings and the angel collapsed against his shoulder in a crumpled pile. Despite being smaller than Dean, Gabe was surprisingly heavy and the hunter staggered a few steps back as he worked to stabilize his friend. The flames licked at his back but he steadfastly ignored them as he hefted the smaller man up and slid one arm across his shoulders for support. For once, Gabe didn't say anything and simply shot him a small but grateful smile.

The silence didn't last long though. "So are you stupid enough to have come here alone or is Sammy-boy out looking for a holy water vending machine at the moment?" Gabriel said as he staggered unevenly against Dean's hip.

"I don't know where he is," the hunter admitted and his worry must have shown through pretty clearly in his voice since the angel immediately lifted his head to look at him. He met Gabriel's questioning stare and shrugged. "Legion caught us by surprise. When I woke up, Sam wasn't with me anymore. I don't know where he was taken but we gotta find him. And Cas too." He felt the angel stiffen at his side.

"He's got my little bro?" Gabriel asked in a quiet voice tinged with something strained and dangerous before he suddenly erupted. "WHAT THE HELL, DEAN?" He lunged toward the ring of fire with jerky movements but the farther he got from the ropes and the star he'd been bound with, the more stable he seemed to become and Dean helped lead him right to the edge. "I THOUGHT you two dipsticks couldn't POSSIBLY screw up taking care of him! I thought if there was anyone who would protect him, it would be you two. Boy was I wrong."

"HEY," Dean snapped angrily, "we DID take care of him, alright? What the hell were we supposed to do against LEGION? You know, that demon that kicked your ass?"

"Legion wasn't the one that kidnapped me, genius," Gabriel said with a surprising amount of bitterness. Before he could elaborate further though Hezrial raced back into the room carting what looked like a weathered old door with him. He dropped the water stained wood onto the flames, effectively creating a bridge over the fire and watched anxiously as Dean all but dragged Gabriel across it. As soon as the two cleared the flames, Hezrial was at his brother's side, carefully tending to his wounds and offering support where he could. Dean didn't bother to ask where he got the door from.

"Knock it off, knucklehead, I'm not DYING," Gabriel said, pushing the fretting angel away. Hezrial didn't seem offended by the rejection and instead complied by falling into step beside them as the archangel shuffled farther away from the flames and toward the open door. Dean was about to question him on what he'd meant by his earlier statement when he was interrupted by the arrival of a small handful of demons suddenly filling the only exit, confident smiles stretching over their faces. Hezrial visibly bristled and Dean reached for his gun only to discover it wasn't there. He cussed under his breath as he realized it had probably been left on the hotel floor and his only defense was the knife in his hand. Dean looked down at Gabe.

"Any suggestions?" he said dryly.

The archangel smiled sheepishly up at him. "Uh, try not to die?" he offered.

"Gee, thanks," Dean snapped bitterly. Hezrial stepped forward, trying to place himself as much as possible between the monsters they now faced and the vulnerable men behind him. A short silver blade slid into his hand from thin air and he curled his fingers around it tightly as he waited for the first strike. It didn't take long and despite his current lack of heavenly power, Dean discovered the young angel was far from helpless. The first demon was dispatched relatively quickly and Hezrial seemed to be handling the second fairly well but the tables turned when a third joined in the fray, bringing the young man to his knees with a sharp blow to the back. Dean shifted Gabriel and lowered him to the floor where the archangel managed to prop himself up on his knees. The hunter turned and threw himself into the fray, yanking one of the demons off the young angel he had been choking. Dean held his own for a few brief minutes but with an ordinary knife as his only weapon it didn't take long for the demon he was struggling with to gain the upper hand. His back slammed into the corner of the doorway, sending pain lancing down his spine, and before he could push himself off, a hand wrapped around his throat with an iron grip. The demon leaned in close, his breath reeking as he growled in Dean's face. The hunter thought of at least three witty remarks he would have loved to make but the hand cutting off his air supply let him do little more than wheeze as he punched the demon over and over to no avail.

Black spots began dancing around the edges of his vision and he lost track of where everyone else was as his world began to narrow into a gray tunnel threatening to swallow him. The darkness closing in on him was suddenly burned away in a brilliant light and he wondered if this was dying all over again before the grip around his throat suddenly disappeared, letting him gulp down a few delicious lungfuls of cold air. The world came back into focus and Dean found himself looking down at the body of the demon that had been strangling him. When he looked up, it was to find Gabriel smiling in a self-satisfied way that said they both knew full well he'd just saved Dean's butt and effectively rendered them even for the hunter's earlier assistance. "I take it you got your mojo back?" Dean rasped as he rubbed at his sore neck. Between the chain he'd been bound with earlier and the demon choking the life out of him, his poor abused throat was protesting any attempts to use his voice and his words came out sounding thin and gravelly.

"Feelin' better every minute," Gabriel chirped with irritating brightness but his tone flattened to something less pleasant as he continued, "Now let's go find my little brother that you so conveniently lost."

Dean bit back a sarcastic reply and fell in beside the angel as he strode from the room obviously feeling much more like himself now that he was away from his temporary prison. Hezrial dropped into a perfect alignment as well behind his older and more powerful sibling, seemingly unfazed by the myriad cuts and bruises now littering his vessel. Between the three of them, they looked like the victims of a train wreck. "Don't suppose you can magic us all better now?" Dean asked even though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

"No can do, kiddo," Gabriel confirmed as he marched down the hallway with a singular purpose that suggested he already knew where they were headed, "Our host has carved this place up with demonic sigils like a hyperactive three year old with a crayon. You're lucky I could even summon enough power to get rid of that one demon."

"Oh, that's great," Dean grumbled, "so how exactly are we going to defeat this bastard then? Are you planning to just march up to him and ask him politely to leave?"

"We will continue with your original plan," Hezrial interrupted, pulling forth a small jar from one of his cargo pockets.

He offered it to Dean who frowned and bounced the container a few times in his hand. "We're going to fight an incredibly powerful demon with a mason jar full of dirt," he said incredulously. Hezrial nodded with utter confidence having obviously missed the sarcasm in Dean's voice. "Of course we are," the hunter sighed. He sped up slightly to put himself level with the driven archangel leading them. "So what did you mean when you said Legion wasn't the one that caught you?"

Gabriel's face twisted into an angry scowl. "Even a demon that big can't take down an archangel, Dean. No, THAT little surprise came at the hands of my own backstabbing family." Dean's eyebrow shot up almost to his hairline. As far as he knew, all the other major players in the heavenly host were MIA what with Michael and Lucifer still locked in the cage. His unspoken question was answered with a truly bitter snarl from his companion. "Raphael," Gabriel spat, "He always was the one with no sense of humor. It's nice to know that I wasn't the only one you two duped with the holy oil but he wasn't gonna stay in that ring forever and apparently he was pretty pissed about that whole 'missing the apocalypse' thing when he got out."

"So your own brother handed you over to a DEMON?" Dean said with open disgust, "Nice family." He snapped his lips shut though and swallowed hard when Gabriel turned a glare on him that said his patience for that particular subject was dangerously thin. He finally worked up the courage to ask the other burning question that had been plaguing him though. "He the one that turned Cas into an extra on Sesame Street too?"

Gabriel actually managed to look a little abashed and he pointedly refused to look in Dean's direction. "No, that was me."

Dean stopped short and stared in disbelief. "Excuse me?" he said with a barely controlled temper. He couldn't have heard that right.

Gabriel turned and shrugged innocently. "What? It was just a joke!" He let out an exaggerated sigh. "We were having a discussion while waiting for you two to show up and he was getting all wound up over me 'redesigning' your room. He kept saying it was childish…so I reminded him who was the little brother here. Get it?" He looked at Dean expectantly as if the joke should have been more than obvious. "He's my little bro, so I turned him into my really little bro?"

"So you turned him into a freakin' baby as a JOKE? Cause Sam and I have been trying to keep his ass from getting eaten by demons all damn week. Oh yeah, that's REAL freakin' funny," Dean shouted angrily.

"I wasn't exactly expecting the interruption, Dean," Gabe snapped back, "I wasn't gonna leave him like that. I was gonna put him back after a day or two."

"Whatever," Dean said dismissively as he turned and stormed down the hallway again, "let's just find him and Sam and then you're gonna put Cas back to normal."

Hezrial had watched the whole exchange with a slightly confused expression, his head quirking back and forth between the two as if watching a tennis match, and as Dean stormed off down the hallway, he turned to Gabriel. "I agree it wasn't a very well thought out joke," he said quietly in an attempt not to offend his brother.

Gabriel shot him a look that said clearly to shut up. "Everyone's a critic," he grumbled as he turned to follow Dean. The trio made their way deeper into the complex with Gabriel once more assuming the lead as they wound through various dank hallways. Their encounters with demons were rare considering the circumstances and between them they dispatched what few they came across with relative ease now that their strongest player was farther away from the trap. While the sigils were easily subduing Hezrial's lesser abilities, they weren't entirely able to smother the might of the archangel and the longer Gabe was free from his prison, the more strength he regained, though it still wasn't enough to heal them all.

Dean and Hezrial pulled up short as their leader stopped suddenly, his face turned down a long dark side hall that terminated in a heavy metal door. Bloody sigils were scrawled in a maddening swirl of patterns down the length of both walls and Dean felt his stomach clench from the sheer taint rolling off them. Hezrial shifted uneasily beside him but didn't show any other outward signs of fear as his brother took a first tentative step into the hallway. Entering the space was obviously difficult for Gabe but his eyes were locked onto the door at the end and he nodded toward it. "This is it, boys," he whispered with a focused determination, "time to put your game face on." With that, he strode down the hallway and into the darkness. Dean followed without hesitation since this was likely where Sam and Cas were being held but he staggered and gagged as the scent of soil hit him full force the minute he crossed the threshold. It was as if the sigils were trapping the smell within the small expanse between the two rough walls on either side and Dean yanked his shirt up to cover his nose as he pressed on.

Gabriel was the first to reach the door and he glanced back only once to make sure the others were with him before he slammed it inward and stepped into the room. Dean rushed in behind him, soil in hand but he screeched to a halt at the sight that met his eyes. A small crowd of demons lined one side of the room while Legion hovered against the opposite and between them a low stone altar had been erected. Standing at it was none other than Sam himself, his forehead beaded with sweat and his eyes wild with rage and pain. In one hand he gripped a wicked looking blade while a frightened infant angel clung to the other and when he met Dean's eyes, the older Winchester saw no recognition there.