Birds of Passage

by Neotoma

Summary:

Lucifer is back in his Cage, but one averted Apocalypse doesn't mean much in the face of another, more human one. Sam Winchester, the Archangel Gabriel, and a man millennia out of his own time have wandered into a small Kansas town, where they get to deal with tree thieves, suspicious sheriffs, shady characters, political in-fighting, looming starvation, and the occasional pagan deity passing through. It's just one damn thing on top of another after The End of the World.

Notes:

Written for the Gabriel Big Bang 2011. Additional warnings -- gore/animal sacrifice, implied past abuse, gore/torture, homophobia/transphobia, set post-S5 SPN/ S1 Jericho.

 

Art by Cashay

Prologue – I will lay my burden in the cradle of your grace

Hrafn woke in the night, in the time between beauty sleep and second sleep, in the midnight time when people stirred and talked and made love, but there was none of that for him anymore. Instead, there was his bed full of the völva's cats and no one else. He didn't blame the other members of the household for shunning his company – his wife was dead, and he himself unnaturally alive and now prone to fits of uncanny knowledge. Even without the accusations that had brought him to Gjaflaug Völva's service, he was too strange for a woman to lie with anymore, and his surrogacy for the old völva during the feasts too disgraceful. But he had heard a voice calling to him in his dreams, so he slipped out of his booth at the end of the house, and pulled on shoes and dress, his blue cloak lined with cat-skin, mittens and cap, before slipping out through the door.

The night was dark, with the moon only a sliver, most of its face hidden and shadowed.

"Hello?" he called out to the night, to the dis or elf or land-spirit that had been singing in his dreams for days now.

'Hello, Hrafn Friththjófsson,' came the reply, in a voice that rang inside his skull, echoing and re-echoing like the clash of blades in battle, like the roar of a river in full flood. 'Thank you for coming...'

"I haven't agreed yet, spirit," Hrafn said. "I want to see you. As you are, not as you appear in my dreams, pretending to be my kin."

The spirit didn't reply for a moment, and Hrafn wondered if he had offended it. There was not much he could do to an elf, he thought, but they were said to be touchy and prone to taking offense at the least mis-step.

'All right,' it spoke finally, and the sky was suddenly vibrant, full of light and the sound of mighty wings.

Hrafn fell to his knees in shock, astonished. "Oh. So beautiful..."

The spirit laughed, 'Is that all I have to do, show myself and you fall at my feet? I was expecting... something else.'

Hrafn frowned, and sat back on his heels. "I can go back to bed, if you'd like?"

'No! No, don't do that. I need you.'

"Then don't mock me, spirit."

'My name is –' the spirit trumpeted a sound that had Hrafn wincing at its shrieking jangle. But he could feel the meaning behind it.

"'Asvald'? Your name is 'Godly power'?"

'Yes. I am Might-of-God, who stands in His presence at His left hand, his Messenger and his Scourge.'

"Impressive. If I knew which god you were talking about."

'I'm talking about the Father. The Creator!'

Hrafn looked askance at the spirit that hovered in the sky. "Tyr?" he asked.

'...no.'

"Then I don't know your god."

The spirit made contracted in on itself, like a fire guttering in the wind, like a man hunching his shoulders.

'I need your help, Hrafn Friththjófsson of the Fox Clan.'

Hrafn recoiled. "I have no clan anymore. I have nothing, not to have, and not to give, Asvald servant of no god I know."

The spirit uncoiled from its wheel in the sky, its light expanding, warming Hrafn as it asked, '...If I gave you something, then I could have your help?'

Hrafn laughed at the spirit. "You know nothing of mankind, do you?"

'I know enough. You want something, I want something. We give to each other and we both get what we need. That's how it works between humans, right?'

"What I want, Asvald, is my life to be different, for my wife not to be dead, to not be thought a draugr, to be free to live and die as a man, and not as my fate has made me. Can you change the past, spirit?"

'No, I can't change the past, I can't change destiny.'

"No one can, for the day and hour is set." Hrafn looked up at the spirit; it seemed sad, somehow, as it hung above him, brighter than the moon and the northern lights combined. "I will die twice, and soon."

'What do you mean?' the spirit asked.

"Gjaflaug Völva is old. She is fading. When she dies, they will tie me to her chariot because no other völva is as strong as she, and they think I am a draugr."

'...tie you to her chariot? But if she's dead, won't someone else own that?'

"Her chariot that she will ride in her grave, spirit," Hrafn growled. Did the spirit know nothing? "She will take her best horses, her chariot, her staff and all her best treasures into death, so that she will not be tempted to walk afterward. All her treasures, and me."

'That would kill you!' Asvald protested.

"They think I am draugr, that I am already dead and walking! They will bury me with the völva just for safety."

'I need you alive!'

"Then you will be disappointed. I'm not alive, not even now. I am draugr, walking and dead. Ask anyone."

'Hrafn, you're alive now. If you come help me, you'll be alive long after the völva is dead. And no one will bury you in a chariot, not while you're still breathing.'

Hrafn stared up at the spirit.

"Is that a promise? A promise you can keep, Asvald?"

'Yes, it's a promise, and yes, I can keep it."

"If you promise, that if I help you and you take me away from here, away to where no one knows me and no one thinks I'm dead, then I will do whatever you need, for as long as you need."

'It will be hard work, and stranger than you can imagine, and you may not like any of it. I will be closer to your than your brothers, than your wife, and you will not be able to leave me.'

"But I will be free of this life, of this doom?" Hrafn asked.

'Yes, you will be free of this life. Your doom will be my doom, for as long as I am with you.'

"That sounds... wonderful," Hrafn said, and scrubbed his face against tears. He looked up at the spirit in the air. "Yes. Whatever you need, Asvald, yes."

'Thank you,' the spirit said, and flowed down out of the sky, twisting and coiling around Hrafn like a cauldron full of snakes. At first, it was merely close, then tight and then burning pressure. Hrafn closed his eyes and endured as Asvald flowed close, over Hrafn's skin, and then under it.

The pain was indescribable, and Hrafn went away under it, in darkness and dreams.

He stayed under for a very, very long time.

 

Part One – every highway leads you prodigal

Jake was on patrol on the northern edge of town when they spotted the archer. Horses and riders were pretty common nowadays, what with all the gas being saved for the generator and the emergency vehicles, so at first he thought it was just someone from an outlying farm coming into town for business.

But then the horse came close enough that Jake and the guys could make out its color and markings, and the neat coat and cap of its rider, and Jake realized he had no idea who that was.

A varnished bay horse, with an appaloosa blanket marking its rump, it was very compactly put together, with solid legs and iron-hard hooves and probably a lot of speed. It was too flashy to be forgettable, and he could tell that no one else on patrol recognized it from the nervous hand signals and worried mutters.

The rider was bundled, not in a down parka that had seen better (cleaner) days, or layers of sweaters and sweatshirts, but in a long coat that looked like it might be sheepskin, with the wool turned in and the suede side out. The duster was functional – long and split up the back so to drape over the man's legs as he rode – and the rider was definitely a man, because Jake could make out a beard as well as shaggy hair pulled back at the nape, all tucked under a blue knit cap.

One of the guys raised his eyebrows and pointed at the man as he rode across the open field.

Jake nodded. He'd seen. The man was pulling a bow – an honest to god recurve bow – from a scabbard on his saddle, and fitting an arrow to it. Jake couldn't see what the man had spotted, even after he'd kicked his horse into a canter. But the man let fly, and let out a whoop of triumph as the arrow thunked into the ground. He grabbed the reins from where he'd dropped them around his saddle-horn, and dismounted, walking his flashy horse over to his arrow.

"Damn, you see that?" came the awed whisper from where the other Rangers hunkered in the long grass and brush.

Jake nodded. "Rabbit?"

"Mink. Or weasel?"

Jake peered into the distance. He could just make out the floppy shape the archer was pulling off his arrow – it might be a weasel, or a mink, instead of a skinny cottontail. Whichever, that had been a hell of a shot – shooting small game with a bow wasn't at all easy, and doing it from a running horse... Jake was impressed.

But he still didn't know who the guy was. He did, to Jake's far-away eyes, look a lot more put together than a road refugee. He had a warm coat, a sensible warm hat, a hunter's weapon that he knew how to use – and his horse, if not exactly fat, was shaggy instead of starving, and so well trained to tolerate bowhunting off its back.

The man got back in the saddle, and turned back the way he'd come. Jake could see a long dark shape on the other side of the horse – a long gun holster, tied forward so that the rider could pull his gun out as he rode – and two dangling shapes, one that might be a rabbit, one that was definitely a bird of some sort – a small pheasant, or prairie chicken.

"Three kills?" Jake asked.

"Three," one of the guys said.

"He's not alone, then." Jake murmured. "And he's got a long gun in that holster."

"But he's hunting with a bow..?"

Jake thought about it, then frowned. "He's saving the gun ammo. Miss with the bow, you can usually get the arrow back. You can't reuse a cartridge." Saving the ammo for things that wouldn't run away from an archer – like road gangs.

"Follow him?"

Jake sighed. That archer hadn't done anything suspicious, except shooting a bow with impressive skill, but they had to keep track of any stranger nearing Jericho. The road gangs were still haunting the area, outside of the Rangers' patrol reach. This guy could be a scout for one that was making its way south. He was too put together for a refugee.

"Yeah, follow him."

 

Sam stamped his feet again, and hoped Hrafn would come back soon. They were making slow progress south as they tried to reach Texas. Sam knew partly it was his fault – he was the one who insisted on trying to get to the Republic, now that the way east was blocked, and he was the one who was trying to navigate around the damned Allied States troops and their mercenary auxiliaries, and he was the one who picked up strays – well, Hrafn was unlikely to leave kids to die either, but he'd been all for hunkering down on any of the abandoned farms they'd come across. But Sam wanted to get away from the ASA before winter truly broke.

If he waited until spring, they would solidify their foothold, and Sam didn't know that he'd even be able to get the news out about Sioux Falls if that happened. And he owed Bobby, and Sheriff Mills that much. He and Hrafn were probably the only ones who escaped, because he wasn't a normal easy-to-kill civilian and neither was Hrafn, not with an archangel lying wounded in his head.

"Sam..." Kat said, her voice full of dread all of the sudden.

Sam turned his head to find Hrafn riding up on his spotted mare Skalm. The Norseman's sharp face was hard, and his right hand hovered over his gun scabbard.

Sam grimaced, and swung himself into his horse's saddle. He was better than he had been, but if they had to run, he was going to be clinging to the saddle-horn and hoping Spot followed Skalm and Snookums without much direction from him. Which she would, actually.

"'Senna, Eric, on Slipper, now," Hrafn ordered as he drew alongside the wagon. He swung his legs over his saddle and leapt from horse to wagon-bed. The kids watched him with wide eyes, but hurried to climb out of the wagon and around to the slate-grey dun who was tied to the back.

"Road crew?" Sam asked, looking the way Hrafn had come. He couldn't see anything, but there were wind-row trees screening each side of the road. Anyone could be crouched among the hackberries and cottonwoods, just waiting for them to come this way.

"I don't know," Hrafn said, and pulled Ríkvé from her nest of blankets.

"I've got her," Kat said as Hrafn handed the toddler up. Kat hooked the toddler to her in a sling-snuggie – a motion that was practiced and smooth, much to Sam's regret. No sixteen year old girl should be prepared to ride for her life with a toddler wrapped to her chest.

Hrafn nodded, then looked once over the wagon before snorting in disgruntlement and hopping off. He caught Skalm easily, because she'd kept pacing the wagon, and frowned at Sam.

"We stampede them again?" Sam asked. As hideous as the tactic was, it had worked before.

"Nobody's done anything yet," Kat snapped from her horse. Snookums flicked his ears, on edge because of their nervousness. Sam winced. If the gelding was picking up on their worry, they might wind up spooking all the horses and having a stampede whether they wanted to or not.

Hrafn frowned, and tossed his catch – a pheasant, a rabbit, and a skinny snaky thing that was maybe a mink, if Sam recalled correctly – into the wagon bed. The Norseman looked back the way he came, and rolled his shoulders, as if limbering up for a fight.

"Hrafn..."

"I felt someone watching me, Sam," he said, his eyes scanning the weedy trees and the sere winter grass.

"Were they hostile?" Sam asked. He knew that Hrafn in his own self had a little bit of psychic talent, enough to have snap-to reflexes for danger and just an extra bit of luck.

Hrafn shrugged. Which meant he couldn't tell, but was going to go with suspicion anyway.

Sam gulped, and then ventured silently, 'Gabriel?'

'?' came the reply, not sound but sensation. The ability to speak to Gabriel silently – Gabriel kept calling it 'communing', and Sam really didn't like the implications of that – was one of the thing he'd be surprised by after his abrupt and confusing release from the Pit. He tried to not to wonder just how much being in Hell and being inhabited by Lucifer had changed him; thinking about it was like spinning his wheels, like a hamster in a cage, so he tried not to.

'What did you feel?'

'Curiosity And awe. Hrafn impressed them with his bowshot.'

'No danger?'

The archangel pulsed languidly in Sam's perception, almost like he was shifting to get comfortable. 'Don't think so. Just curiosity Worry, but no malevolence. No panic.'

'Okay then,' Sam responded, and let the archangel go back to resting, or whatever it was that he was doing. Inhabiting his Vessel so minimally that Hrafn was walking and talking in his own body for the first time in what Sam suspected was centuries, if not millennia.

"Kat, Hrafn," Sam said, catching their eyes so that they could see he was firm about this. Kat was a teenager, and inclined to panic, after all. And Hrafn was completely off the wall in what he thought was a proper response to any situation – Sam might have lived a violent hunter's life, but Hrafn tended to think homicide was a solution to many ills. Sometimes he was even right.

"We're going to do this slow and easy. Let them approach us. We can probably get past these people just be being calm and keeping moving, okay?"

Kat nodded, and Hrafn rolled his eyes but nodded too once Sam gave him a hard look.

Hrafn stepped back and grabbed at Gjálp and Greip's reins. He walked beside the wagon-team, leading them and his own riding horse Skalm; if they had to run, Hrafn would abandon the wagon horses and mount to run. The Norseman nodded when Sam looked at him, and whistled out a piercing set of notes.

Sam looked back, to see their mixed herd shape up into something a little tighter, a little more dangerous if they had to panic the cattle deliberately. Fenja and Menja, the Rottweilers he and Hrafn had had since South Dakota, were pushing the cows around from the back, making them more cohesive.

"We'll be good," Kat said nervously. She had a hand protectively over Ríkvé 's back – that little girl could sleep through anything – and she was looking down the road anxiously.

Sam glanced sideways at her, and then back at the wagon. Hrafn he had no worries about, since the likelihood of anyone managing to hurt him with conventional weapons was small, even without figuring in his passenger Gabriel. The likelihood of anyone surviving to make a second attempt at shooting Hrafn was non-existent, and Sam had seen proof of that, back in Sioux Falls. The kids though, if they had to run for it – well, Kat's sister actually knew how to ride, but he hoped Eric would make it just by holding on tight.

"Yeah," Sam lied, "we'll be fine," and turned to face the road again, and whoever might be lurking in the ditches and windbreaks along their path.

 

Jake got to the road and saw the herd tramping down the asphalt. For a moment he was dumbstruck, and then he saw the standoff, and he had to pick it up.

"Martin! Back off!" he called as he jogged forward, his hunting rifle slung over his back.

Martin and the other Rangers pulled back a little, stopped blocking the wagon from moving forward. The archer was hand leading them, a matched pair of dappled drafts, big and beautiful, and peering at all the Rangers with a weather-eye.

The big guy on the pinto, he didn't look like he quite knew what he was doing on horseback – bad posture and clumsy hands – but he had a rifle scabbard hanging off his saddle, and a handgun holstered at his hip. The girl had great posture – toes up, knees in – and looked like she knew what she was doing on her horse, even with her arm tucked protectively around a bundle slung down from her shoulder.

The two little kids on the fabulous grey pony, Jake looked at for a moment and worried. One looked like she knew how to ride, the other looked like he knew how to cling, and if things played out how they often did with road refugees, focusing too much attention on those kids would get the entire family of them to run off in all directions trying to evade Jake.

Jake didn't like to think what that meant for the world outside, if people passing by Jericho got suspicious when he took an interest in their kids.

"Jake, I was just–"

"I said, 'back off'." Jake said. Then he turned looking at the tall man on his horse, and the archer – a guy on the short side of average, now that Jake could see him up close – as he tried to talk to them. "You've wandered into our patrols, friend."

"We can wander right out again, if you just point us in the right direction," the tall man said. His eyes never stopped moving, not nervous, just assessing Jake and the other Rangers. He was waiting for a fight.

"We're not a road gang," Jake said, a little bit annoyed with the suspicion. They hadn't demanded anything, tried to take the wagon or anything else.

"You haven't tried to take the wagon yet," the archer said from his place leading the wagon team, "It is to your favor, but that is a low mark to shoot for."

At least, that's what Jake parsed his words as, after several moments blinking at thick and entirely unrecognizable accent.

"We just want news," Jake said. "What have you heard?"

The tall man blinked. "I-70 is crawling with road gangs, I-80 with militias, and I-90 had army tanks attack the Black Hills."

Jake blinked at that last one. "What?"

"Hadn't you heard? The Pine Ridge Reservation was attacked by the 7th Cavalry. Again. Except this time, the army had tanks."

"But why?!" Jake said. The only rationale he could think of for the army attacking a Sioux reservation would be for some resident or another to have worked with the terrorists. And the likelihood of American Indians working with Al-Qaeda or North Korea or whoever had used nuclear weapons on US soil was practically nil.

"It was a question of authority," the archer said. "One side claimed it, the other refuted their claims."

"Maybe we had better sit down somewhere," Jake said faintly. "I think I can get you a beer – alcohol of some sort, anyway. Then you can tell me everything..."

"I'd rather have water for my cattle," the girl said, butting in to Jake's befuddlement.

He looked at the girl, then the cattle that were still making their way down the road, and nodded. "I can do that. There's a farm down this way – they should have water. Their water pump is still working – it's an old Sears and Roebuck–"

"A wind-powered pump?" the girl asked. At Jake's nod, she smiled. "That'd be great. Sam?" she asked, catching the tall man's eyes.

"I'm willing to risk it," Sam said. His eyes flickered to the archer. "Hrafn, how about you?"

The archer stared at Jake with eyes so pale a brown they were almost yellow. Combined with his beard and drooping mustaches, he looked like a particularly fierce terrier, or a very strange and wise owl.

"Life is a risk. My angel does not think he means us harm, so yes," the archer said.

Jake goggled at the man, and then dismissed his words. Lots of people had turned to religion these days. It didn't mean anything, except that the man's command of English was shakier than Jake had first thought, if was translating his own idioms with no care about how weird they sounded.

"Well, if you'll follow me gentlemen," Jake said, and then hastily added at the girl's sour look, "– miss, we'll get you your water, and then I'll get my news."

 

"So, I'm Jake Green," their host said as he lead them down the road a bit, nearer to the city Hrafn could feel just on the edge of his mind, now that he was aware that there was something to look for. Hrafn consoled himself with the thought that he would have felt the concentration of people in another mile or so even if they hadn't run into this patrol. He still had his knowing, and a city of thousands – maybe even 4000 or 5000 souls, from the dull buzzing on the outskirts of perception – would have made itself known, sooner or later. He might have felt it sooner, but his angel was a constant distracting thrum even as Gabriel drowsed and drifted where he was moored up under Hrafn's soul.

The captain Jake Green seemed respectable, Hrafn thought. His name was another difficult one, like Senna's, and his slightly pop-eyed features were less than intimidating, but there was a mind under that short curly scalp. He reminded Hrafn of some of the Hellenes he had traded with in his youth – clever and sly under their silly hairstyles and effeminate manners.

The man offered them hot water steeped with herbs and sweetened with honey – the bitter tisane the best anyone could offer, in this season of disaster. Three of his men stayed to watch Hrafn and Sam and the children, but the rest of the men went back on their patrol. So, willing to talk, but not above displaying caution even when it might be perceived as rude – after all, Sam and Katla and Hrafn had all taken his tisane, and the stale and awful crackers he offered as well. Hrafn, at least, only swallowed enough of the dry food to show that he accepted the hospitality.

"Sam Winchester," Sam said, pointing around, "Kat and Jennifer Brubaker, Eric Sharpnack, Ríkvé, and Hrafn Friththjófsson."

"Ríkvé ?" Jake Green asked, darting around.

"Ríkvé," Katla repeated, and patted the sling on her shoulder. "She's still asleep, miracle of miracles."

The man's eyes widened in surprise, a truly unfortunate expression because of how foolish it made him look, Hrafn thought. He stepped close, and looked down at Ríkvé when Katla shifted the cloth around the child.

"You've got a baby..." the man whispered, "Your daughter?"

Katla said, "I'm sixteen!" in outrage, as if that wasn't old enough to have a child, then softened herself, "No, Sam and Hrafn found her."

"On the road," Sam explained when Jake looked to him.

"'On the road'... that's no place for a baby, or little kids."

"I'm nine!" Senna yelped. Eric said nothing, being younger and quite scared of strangers now. He was hiding almost, in Sam's shadow.

"Jenny!" Katla hushed her sister.

"Well, I am! I'm not little."

"Later, Jenny."

"Senna," Hrafn said, "come here."

The child frowned and flounced over to him. "I'm not little."

"I know, Senna, but you need to be quiet."

She frowned, and looked to argue, but Eric edged over to them, and Hrafn found himself holding one child by the hand in reassurance and one child by the shoulder to repress her boisterousness while he listened to Sam and Katla negotiate their entrance into the town of Jericho.

 

Sam didn't mind the intake interview; he didn't even bother to lie (much) in response to Jake's questions. Yes, his name was Winchester, yes, like the rifle. He'd been born in Lawrence – that got him a sympathetic look – but had been living in Sioux Falls, South Dakota when the bombs hit. No, he and Hrafn were trying to get Kat and Jenny to their aunt outside of Lubbock, that was why they were traveling so late in the year. No, he and Hrafn hadn't been going south because of the winter – there was plenty of food in South Dakota, and even more fuel, considering the oil-fields – it was the fighting that had driven them south. Yes, he was willing to do any work required of him, yes even ditch-digging and logging – though they were in Kansas, so it wasn't like logging would last very long, and he was comfortable with guns and hunting.

He just avoided telling much about his past, because his life before the bombs had been straight out of a horror novel, and really 'I was possessed by the Devil' and 'No, my friend really does have angel in his head' were surefire ways to get himself pitied as a lunatic at best and driven out of town at worst. Especially since Hrafn would not refrain from referring to Gabriel – Sam would rather people think he was taking care of the Norseman instead of them thinking they were both cracked in the head. He'd escaped from a mental institution before, but he had had a getaway car then. Trying to blow town on horseback would be absolutely miserable now.

Jake was almost finished when Sam heard Hrafn's voice rising up across the office, and he motioned to the other man that he wanted to go see what the trouble was. Jake nodded, and got up himself to trail Sam across the sheriff's office to the glassed in room where one of the uniformed deputies was trying to interview the Norseman.

What's the problem?" Sam asked, leaning into the room.

"He wants to name her Friththjófsson!" Hrafn complained.

"Uhm," the deputy – Taylor, that was his name – hesitated, "That's the name you gave."

"That's my name," Hrafn said in outrage. "She's not my sister, and she's a girl."

Sam smothered a chuckle. "Oh, that's it, is it?"

Taylor looked confused. "What is it?"

Sam smiled. "'Friththjófsson'. It's Hrafn's patronymic, not a family name."

The deputy looked puzzled. "It's not a family name?"

"No," Hrafn said, in tone that said he disapproved of the whole idea of the thing. Then, in an attitude of great concession, he gestured at Sam, "Use his, if you needs must have one."

"Hey!" Sam protested.

The deputy was giving Sam a slow considering look. "I just want her name, for our records."

Sam sighed, and slumped against the door frame. It was time for honesty – cops were generally hard to lie to anyway, and there really wasn't any point to it, not for Ríkvé or Eric or Kat and Jenny. The kids might have fallen into Sam's orbit, but if he and Hrafn told the truth now, maybe those kids would find their families – some bit of their families anyway – again.

Kat and Jenny had their aunt, after all, even if they weren't going to get to her in Texas this winter. Eric knew his last name, his parents' given names, and his street address – once contact was re-established, the Red Cross might be able to track down his family.

But Ríkvé ... Sam didn't even know her real name. Hrafn had given it to her, just to have something to call her; they weren't even sure if her parents had been victims of that road gang, or members.

"I don't know it."

The deputy raised his eyebrows. "You don't know it?"

"Not her real one. Hrafn calls her Ríkvé because he names everything. But we picked her up from a road gang. They were using her as bait – most people will stop for a lost toddler..." Sam sighed, and closed his eyes. That had been a hard day – Ríkvé they had saved, but Sam had wound up salting and burning too many bodies that day.

'It was the right thing to do,' Gabriel whispered, soft and unexpected. Sam opened his eyes, and glanced sideways at Hrafn. He only nodded once.

"She's an orphan..?" Taylor mumbled, almost to himself. "That changes things. We have social services for that. Sort of."

"She stays with us," Hrafn said, his arms tightening around the sleeping toddler.

"Well, for now," Taylor said. "But we've got a list of people to help with road kids –"

Sam frowned. "She'll stay with us. unless you can get a family court judge to order her detention..."

"We're not doing that," Taylor said, his voice turning soothing. "We just want to help, get her into a better home than the refugee center.

Sam frowned. "She's okay with us."

 

"… so you should be all right, even though there's not a lot of space," Bill heard Jake Green saying as he came in the door of the town hall. Bill stamped his feet, knocking off slush from the weak snowfall coming down outside, and looked down the foyer to see the Ranger leader come out of the sheriff's department.

There were strangers with him, two men – white, 6'3" to 6'5", dark brown hair, brown eyes, late 20's to early 30's, muscular, dressed in flannels, jeans, beaten parka and watch cap; white, 5'7' to 5'8", brown hair, long and braided, heavy beard and drooping mustache, hazel eyes, late 30's to early 40's, dressed in sheepskin coat, denim jacket, jeans, watch cap; a woman – no, make that a teenage girl – white, 5'8" to 5'9", definitely taller than the older man, dark blond hair, brown eyes, dressed in jeans, duffle coat, watch cap. There were two kids and a toddler with them – the girl looked nine or so, and the shape of her face made her probably related to the teenager. The boy was seven or even younger, bright carrot-top hair cropped short to control what were likely wild curls, freckles on his face even in winter. Both kids had down parkas, streaked with road wear. The toddler was in the arms of the older man – white, 10 to 14 months, black hair in baby wisps, bundled in a layers topped with a coat that looked both handmade and fur.

"Hey, Jake."

"Bill," Jake nodded. The people with him stopped, peering around Jake to look at Bill. He didn't think he looked that scary, dressed in his uniform and a heavier coat. But the men each drew back a little, hands dropping down as if reassuring themselves they had weapons, which they did not. Bill could almost see the 'oh shit' that crossed their faces, and smiled just a little at it. The strange sense of familiarity he dismissed as soon as it brushed his mind.

"Mrs. Henderson lost another three trees from the windbreak along the back of her property. I followed see the drag marks, but when they reached the road..." Bill shrugged, annoyed. Asphalt didn't exactly take tracks, and Mrs. Henderson wasn't the sort to investigate noises during the night, even if it was sounds of someone chainsawing down her trees. Bill didn't exactly blame her, living alone on her farm, but she seemed to think it was his fault her trees were being cut down.

"Crap," Jake said. "We don't need this – someone is going to get shot over this, Bill."

The tall man made a coughing sound, and glanced at Jake, and then at Bill. Bill didn't like the tall man's raised eyebrows and vaguely appalled expression, like Bill was something unpleasant and confusing.

"Oh, right. Bill, this is Sam Winchester and his folk," that made the older man roll his eyes, and Bill could almost hear 'his folk?!' in the man's annoyed gesture, "Kat and Jenny Brubaker, Eric Sharpnack, Raf Frith– Frithd-"

"Hrafn Friththjófsson," the older man corrected, in an accent that would have sounded alright on a Muppet, but was really weird on a person.

"Yeah, sorry, and Ríkvé ... what is her last name, anyway?" Jake said.

"Winchester," Friththjófsson said as Winchester said, "Hrafnsson."

The two men glared at each other, and then Friththjófsson said, "Sveinsdottir, if you must. She is a girl, Sam."

Winchester frowned, and then went back to eyeballing Bill in a manner that was distinctly suspicious.

"Bill's one of our sheriff's deputies," Jake said in a desperate attempt to fill up the silence.

Winchester stopped eyeballing Bill long enough to give Jake a confused look, "I thought you said your county sheriff died after the attacks...?"

Bill snapped, "Sheriff Dawes was killed by some escapees from a prison bus." He'd been a good man, a good boss, and this stranger didn't know any of it.

"I'm sorry, Deputy..." Winchester paused to read Bill's nametag, "Koehler? I just want to know who the sheriff is. I mean, you're a deputy, so who are you a deputy for?"

"Thomas County Sheriff's Department," Bill said.

"But—"

"Sam," Friththjófsson said, "Stop pestering him. It is unbecoming."

Winchester blinked, staring at the older man, then glanced sideways at Jake, and then at the teenager Kat, and finally at Bill.

"Sorry."

Jake shifted awkwardly on his feet, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "No problem. Let me get you over to the church; the refugee shelter is in the basement. Bill, I'll be back just as soon as I get these folks settled."

Bill watched them go, Jake and the refugees, and wondered why he felt like he was missing something.

 

Hrafn couldn't see why Jake had apologized for the room. The church – a temple of the White Christ – was as large as any Hrafn had seen in his life before his angel. Fifty people could sleep in its undercroft, and it was snug against the winter winds.

'It's not that big by their standards. Heck, I've made bigger places for a trick.'

'That's because you're showy and ostentatious, eagle-chieftain. Like a peacock from the land of the Hellenes.'

Gabriel congealed at that, turning cold and thick in Hrafn's mind. It was just like the angel, to pout when pricked in his pride. He wasn't strong enough to set Hrafn to sleeping away the years anymore, so Hrafn just smiled, and walked the corridor towards the kitchen area.

"Hello?" he said, peering into the room. A woman with the dark features of distant Africa looked up at him. She was beautiful, in the manner of fire-giants, smoky and strong, though she affected the short hair of a matron, at least the way these people seemed to array themselves. Hrafn wondered briefly what she'd look like with her hair wound long in braids, and then shook off the fancy. Just because he found her attractive was no reason to be rude or foolish. She was probably already married, for one – she was too lovely not to have been wooed by some enterprising man for his household.

"Can I help you?"

"I am Hrafn Friththjófsson. Jake Green said I should ask at the kitchen for help with the milk for my Ríkvé?" Hrafn said, lifting Ríkvé from his shoulder.

"Oh! Hi, baby," the woman approached, cooing at Ríkvé . She looked up at Hrafn, and smiled, "How old is she? I'm Darcy Hawkins, by the way."

"She is just over a year," Hrafn said.

'Using the baby as an icebreaker? Isn't that beneath the dignity of a chieftain of the Fox Clan?'

'I will go with whatever works among these people, Asvald. And I haven't been a chieftain since before you and I met.'

"Jake sent you here for milk? We've been keeping it outside – none of the refrigerators work anyway, and it's cold enough... but there isn't much left..."

"You misunderstand, Darcy Hawkins. We have cows," Hrafn said, "I just need–" he shrugged, patting Ríkvé's back as she gabbled and tried to pull on his collar.

"You have cows..?"

"Several. They are Katla's inheritance." And the ones still in milk were corralled outside of the school building a few streets away, as Katla had come to a fast agreement to trade most of the milk to the school for the pasturage. Hrafn didn't think it was a strong contract as these people considered things, but it would do for now.

"You have milking cows?"

"I have said. If you have a pail..?"

"I have..." the woman opened several doors, rooting through the shelves, "… bowls. Will this one work?"

Hrafn frowned at the plastic bowl she offered, and looked past her to the shelf. He had spied something better.

"I would like that," he said, pointing.

"The stockpot?"

"It's quite large."

"Take it."

Hrafn smiled and thanked her before leaving to find Sam and Katla. He'd leave Ríkvé with Sam, and get Katla to milk the cows with him. Even with the two of them, it would take hours.

 

Bill walked home, after his shift, bundled against the cold. He'd put in a full shift on patrol, on top of his training with the Rangers. They were getting better, he thought, but sliding back and forth between the paramilitary mindset and the law enforcement one was draining him; he didn't like how easily the idea of patrols and killing enemies came, not when he had sworn himself to the law and peacekeeping.

At least today the intake of refugees was small. Better it would be to be non-existent, but they were still taking people in on sufferance, if Jake thought they could be useful or they were kids with them. The group today had been both.

Two grown men, one almost grown girl, and a handful of little kids who should be in school like Linh, all looking like they'd rolled in dust and debris before they ran into the Rangers... well, Gray Anderson the mayor had perked up with at the cattle they'd had with them, and the horses. They'd brought enough meat, more than enough to cover themselves in the rationing – and the one guy was a competent hunter, if the pheasant and rabbits hanging off his saddle had been any indication. Bill hadn't liked the way the tall guy had looked at him, confused and a little suspicious, but the rest of the group had seemed all right.

He tramped up the steps to his house, and slipped inside. It was cold inside too, but at least out of the wind. He took off his uniform jacket and his holster, putting his gun away safely.

"Hey..." Kim said from the living room. She was wrapped in a comforter, Linh snuggled down beside her on the couch. The jerry-rigged candle-lamp sputtered on an end table.

"Hi, Daddy! Do you know that Jupiter has moons that go backwards?!" Linh asked, popping over the back of the couch to ask.

"Uh... yeah?" Bill said.

"Mrs. Tenczar said that it's 'retrograde'! That's a neat word, 'retrograde'. It means 'going backwards'," Linh went on.

"That's neat, honey. What else did you learn in school today?"

Kim got up and got him a slice of bread with a smear of chicken fat, which Bill ate in the weak lamplight as Linh told him all about her school day, until she ran down into yawns and burbling about candle-making.

It was easy enough to carrying Linh up to bed when she fell asleep. She didn't even protest much about it being early – it was impossible for her to tell without a working clock in her room. Bill was able to get her into her pajamas – thank god she was still small enough for footy pajamas, with their added warmth – and tuck her in with just one storybook. Their dogs Mugsy and Boo hopped under the covers, as her own personal living space heaters, and Bill left after he blew out the candle.

Kim was in bed already, under the piled covers. Bill stripped off his sweaters and uniform pants and kicked his shoes into a heap by the door.

"Any bets whether she'll sleep through the night?" Kim said.

"She hasn't yet." Bill sighed, and contemplated his own pajamas. Fuzzy flannel was probably the practical choice, but he felt as attractive as a dose of castor oil in those things. On the other hand, Kim would probably be annoyed if he managed to get his parts frozen off. She liked his parts, as well as the rest of him, for some reason.

"Well, maybe we can take advantage of her sleeping while she is," Kim smiled at him, and tugged him underneath the massive heap of blankets. Of course, just when things were getting good and giggly, they were interrupted by a cry of "Mommy? Daddy?"

 

They were bedded down that night in the Presbyterian church basement, sharing a meeting room with seventeen other people – road refugees who'd come off downed planes and escaped the FEMA camps before fetching up here.

The kids – Eric, Jennifer and little Ríkvé – were asleep all together in one cot, with Kat sleeping beside them. Sam was glad to see the teenager finally let go enough to sleep. She had been wound too tight all the weeks since they had picked her and her sister up in Orchard, and maybe this wasn't the end of the road for any of them, but it was certainly a place to rest.

If it hadn't been for the utterly eerie and oblivious appearance of that deputy, Sam would be glad that they had fetched up in this town. Jericho was the first town that he felt was safe. Every other place they'd been through made him skin crawl – as if the townsfolk were just waiting until he fell asleep to rob him blind, or worse, bake him into pies.

Sam couldn't help thinking that life after the Apocalypse should have been different – for one, it shouldn't have included demons and nuclear bombs. That was just overkill on someone's part.

"Sleep, Sam," Hrafn murmured, where he sat curled in a corner. The Norseman slept sitting up by habit, which was both freaky and useful, considering he also slept with a weapon at hand. More than once, Sam had seen him explode from asleep to upright in an instant – to the regret of quite a few road bandits.

'Not that sleepy...' Sam pushed, even as he rolled over and tugged his weathered blanket over him. 'I want answers.'

Hrafn looked down at him with tawny eyes, but it was Gabriel who answered, 'Of course you do.'

'Explain, Gabriel. That deputy – Koehler– '

'Bill,' Hrafn said, his mental voice clear.

'Yeah, him. What the fuck? Why does he look like–'

'Vali.' Gabriel said. 'His name was Vali.'

'You know him.'

Hrafn laughed, and slumped over until he could look Sam in the eyes. 'Of course we do. We're his father, sort of.'

"What?!" Sam yelped, confused enough to speak aloud.

'You didn't think I figured out how to be a god on my own, did you?' Gabriel said, his tone laced with evil amusement and just a hint of regret. 'Being Loki was a joint effort – at least, I leaned on Hrafn a lot, until I figured out how to be a Jotun on my own.'

Hrafn chuckled aloud softly, and added silently, 'You thought he was just pretending to be Loki, didn't you? Ha. No. It was all there, in song and story. But people forgot after the White Christ came, and all that's left are the stones and the sorrow...'

'And Vali, for my sins,' Gabriel said, so faint that Sam could barely perceive the thoughts.

Sam swallowed his spit. He'd read the Eddas and other surviving stories, when he had wanted to and had time. Vali...Vali was...

'The one who was turned into a wolf?' he asked, and felt Gabriel turn his attention away.

Hrafn just blinked at Sam with his cool hazel eyes. "Hrafn?"

The other man nodded. 'He's mad, Sam. You must understand this.'

'Well, I'm sorry if bringing up makes you unhappy, Gabriel, but–'

'Not me, idiot. Vali.' Gabriel snapped. 'Vali is mad.'

Sam's almost bit his tongue in shock. 'Explain?'

'The boy was forced into the shape of a rabid wolf, and made to kill his brother.' Hrafn explained. 'Guilty of kinslaying–'

'They bound me with the guts of my son, my Narfi,' Gabriel said, bitter ashes in his tone, 'They forced Vali to murder his brother so they wouldn't have blood on their hands, and they let him go into the night because they didn't care what happened to him after.'

Hrafn cut in, 'It was wrong, and evil, and only by loophole was it not kinslaying for them all. And the boy was mad afterward.'

'I found him,' Gabriel explained. 'Later. After I escaped. After Sigyn left me. Mad and foaming, Sam. No one should have to go through centuries of that, so I... I tried to fix him. But I'm not a healer. I never was.'

'He doesn't last, forced into a human body. He doesn't seem to have the knack for it.' Hrafn shook his head. 'This time round, he's lasted much longer than he normally does. Perhaps he's healing, finally.'

'Or maybe we just put so many wards and protective blessings on him that he's managed to skate by. There's certainly enough that no one is going to notice the resemblance, if that's what you're worried about,' Gabriel said.

Sam digested this. It seemed – 'You're telling me that that deputy I met today – the weaselly suspicious one – is your son, a Norse god?'

'Yeah...' Gabriel sighed.

'A minor god, Sam,' Hrafn added. 'Like a land-spirit or a ghost. He's hardly a threat.'

Sam rolled his eyes, and glared at them both. 'You are impossible. Both of you.'

 

Coming into town that morning was kind of a desperation move for Mimi. The trip was both long and miserable, since it had to be done on horseback. Mimi was no kind of rider – she'd lived in DC, which was only horse country once you hit the suburbs of Maryland and northern Virginia, and only if you were willing to be an hour outside the city and pay exorbitantly for a hobby that Mimi had never found that interesting, even as an excitable pre-teen.

But a three and a half mile trip on foot would have taken more than an hour in the cold and the wind, and while Mimi was a champion walker – she lived in DC, after all, driving was something you did when you needed to go outside of the city – the farms outside of Jericho weren't exactly set up for it.

So there she was, sitting on the slowest, gentlest horse that Gail Green could lend, and plodding along. The only good part of it was that the horse was warm. The wind was fierce, and Mimi wished they could have stayed at the farm.

But Bonnie had arranged to meet with the banker today, and Mimi was coming along. Not that Bonnie didn't know more about what needed to be done with the farm now that winter was advanced, but Mimi did know finances, and Bonnie wasn't an adult yet. Somebody had to be around to protect her interests.

Who'd trust someone named 'Sparky' with their money, anyway?

Kansans, apparently.

An hour later, Mimi was listening with ferocious attention as Sparky Dumont, head of the Jericho First Federal, went over Bonnie's options in keeping the farm going through into the new year.

"Well," the banker was saying, "I can lease you one of my diesel tractors..."

Bonnie nodded vigorously, and signed "How much?"

"... but I think you're really going to need hands."

Bonnie frowned, and then said, "What?"

Mimi frowned. The man had turned his head away, just enough that Bonnie hadn't caught that. She turned to Bonnie, and said, "We need help on the farm. More people. Right?" she glanced at the banker, but didn't move her face from Bonnie. It was one of the hardest things to remember when speaking to Bonnie – hearing people tended to glance away, finding staring at someone too uncomfortable after just a bit, but doing it to Bonnie meant she couldn't read your lips.

"More people? For the farm?" Bonnie asked.

"Yes."

"Okay," Bonnie said. "Where do we get them?"

Mimi stared helplessly at Bonnie. She had no idea where or how one might go about hiring farm workers – it wasn't something that usually came up in the IRS. Tax accounts and file clerks, yes, but not farm workers. Unless it involved proving your employees had a legal right to work in the country and you were actually paying their payroll taxes, Mimi hadn't been involved in it.

"Well, normally..." the banker drawled.

"This isn't normal," Mimi cut him off. "What do we do, today?"

"I'd suggest you go to town hall. The office ladies have been keeping a skills list – so many people without work, right now, someone might be able or at least willing to give farm work a try."

Which was how Mimi wound up following Bonnie across the road to the town hall, and then to Catholic church to meet Kim Koehler, who had been the office manager for the state branch office (for just about everything, it turned out, from agricultural extension to social services).

To Mimi's surprise (and her chagrin at her own surprise) Kim Koehler turned out to be a slim woman with shiny black hair and tilted eyes. It wasn't that Mimi hadn't seen Asians and multiracial people in Jericho, though a lot less of them than had been in DC, but that she didn't think Bill Koehler, from what she'd seen of the guy, would be married to someone not lily-white. He was, after all, loudly suspicious of anyone and everyone the least bit foreign, and by 'foreign', he seemed to mean anyone not from western Kansas.

She was in the process of overseeing cooking in the church's basement kitchen, using the biggest pots Mimi had ever seen not in an industrial brewery. It seemed to involve references to binder full of yellowed mimeographs and the most unappetizing smell possible.

"Farm workers?" Kim asked, as she turned down the heat. "Most of the reliable people have already been hired. With the fuel shortage, everything has to be done by hand..."

"I know," Bonnie said. "Is there anyone?"

Kim frowned, and offered "There's a set of refugees, came in three days ago with a herd of cattle. They're looking for land for their herd, and a place to live other than the shelter. Maybe you could trade – pasture for work?"

"Can't hurt to ask," Mimi decided. "What are their names?"

"Just a sec..." Kim ducked out of the kitchen and came back with some handwritten index cards. "Right, names are Katherine Brubaker – she's actually owns the cattle – and her ranch hands: Sam Winchester and Raf– Hra– I don't know how to say this? Raf Frith–Fridolf–?–son?"

"Let me see, please?" Bonnie asked, and carefully read the names and brief descriptions off the cards, before nodding her head.

"Katherine Brubaker, gotcha. Think they're over at the shelter?"

"At the Presbyterian church, yes."

Mimi nodded and followed Bonnie upstairs and out.

The shelter was crowded enough, at least twenty people sitting or lying around not doing anything. Mimi understood that these were the refugees who weren't able-bodied enough to help with whatever unskilled but needed work the mayor had come up with, but it looked like a lot of people not doing anything.

"I'm looking for Katherine Brubaker," Bonnie announced. It got her a lot of sideways looks, for the foghorn slurring of her voice.

A teenage girl raised her hand – a teenager probably younger than Bonnie, to boot. "I'm Katherine Brubaker."

A tall, very tall, taller than Stanley, guy with dark hair and smooth, stony face looked up from the cot where he'd been reading to a toddler, and said, "Kat?"

"It's all right, Sam..."'

"You're Sam Winchester?" Mimi asked.

"Yes..." the man said, and then patted the little girl sitting beside him.

"I'm Bonnie Richmond," Bonnie said to Katherine – Kat, apparently – "I have a farm. Kim Koehler had your name. You're looking for land."

"Pasture, I'm looking for pasture for the winter. I've got cattle."

"And horses," the man added.

"And Sam and Hrafn's horses. And my yaks."

"Yaks?" Mimi barked.

The tall man nodded. "Yaks."

"My mom liked them," Kat said, and there was a world of sadness in her eyes.

Mimi winced, and Bonnie looked sympathetic, though her staring at Kat to read her lips probably didn't come off that way. So Mimi said, "Okay, yaks. We can handle yaks..."

"I've been trading the milk for pasture at the elementary school," Kat said, "but their grass is almost gone. If I put my stock on your land..."

"Milk for the school?" Bonnie repeated, and nodded. "That's good. We keep selling it."

"Hold on," Winchester said. "That milk is from Kat's cows. She needs the pasture, but that doesn't mean you get to sell the milk and keep all the profit for yourself..."

Mimi frowned. She thought that was a pretty good idea, actually – she and Bonnie would keep the cows on the Richmond farm, milk them (there was a milking machine someplace – Stanley had a milk cow for their own use but the animal had already run dry), sell the milk, and Kat would get her cows back at the end of the winter when she moved on, or bought land.

"Perhaps," came a man's voice from behind her, thickly accented with creaky vowels straight out of an Elmer Fudd cartoon, "we could come to a better agreement?"

Mimi turned to look to see a man who was a bit shorter than her – not too unusual, she was pretty tall – and tried to recall how Kim Koehler had said his name. "Ravn Frithson?"

"Hrafn Friththjófsson. And you are...?"

"Mimi Clark." She caught Bonnie's eye and said, "I'm helping Bonnie run her and her brother's farm while he's away. We might have room for your cattle and horses."

Friththjófsson looked confused for a moment, but when Bonnie said, "We can talk about renting pasture," his face cleared with understanding, and he walked around to sit next to Winchester. He took the little girl from the other man in a practiced gesture that had Mimi raising an eyebrow – that was a surprise. Gay couples were not exactly thick on the ground in back-end-of-nowhere Kansas.

"I will not sell my horses," Friththjófsson said. "But I will trade work for pasturage and a room to live in."

Bonnie frowned, frustration on her face, and she only looked marginally happier when Winchester looked right at her and said, "That's a good idea. Kat, Miss Richmond, could we come to an agreement? We work on the farm, and keep our horses and Kat's cattle there, and everyone shares the profits?"

Kat looked thoughtful before nodding, which made Bonnie look happier.

"Sounds good," Mimi interjected, before they all agreed themselves into a corner. "Maybe we should talk to a lawyer, though?"

From the raised eyebrows none of them had even thought of that – which meant they weren't thinking things through at all. She'd get them to a lawyer who knew farming contracts, and get something air-tight, even if she and Bonnie had to concede more than she'd like. One stipulation she was going to try for was to get Friththjófsson to shave off that rat's nest on his face – Bonnie couldn't read his lips if she couldn’t see them – or at least start learning ASL immediately.

 

Hrafn found the negotiations more complicated than he could easily understand, but Sam's insistence they got to an advocate very reasonable. He certainly didn't know the laws and customs of this place in any detail, nor did Katla. Sam knew some of the laws, but he admitted ignorance of the technicalities of contracting, so they all went, Hrafn and Sam and Katla, and their soon to be employers Bonnie and her kinswoman Mimi (and Hrafn would never get used to masculine-sounding names on women – it was one of the strangest customs of these late days) to an advocate's place of business, for a contract to be drawn up and written down.

Settling Senna and Eric and Ríkvé with foster-parents was harder. Hrafn found he did not quite want to let go of the children, even though a man his age playing nursemaid was ridiculous, and they really couldn't bring the little ones with them to the farm. They would be too busy to tend them, and while the school was open and cost nothing, it was also in the heart of Jericho. Better to leave the children in the care of others – especially when the other who volunteered for them was Kim, wife of the deputy Bill . That negotiation involved an advocate as well, which Hrafn thoroughly approved of – the laws here were numerous and complicated, but seemed well structured to protect the children orphaned or abandoned, or in Senna's case, just put aside by circumstances for a little time.

Gabriel whined all the way through, though. Hrafn's angel never had patience for merely human laws. He argued they could not be applied to him, only his Father's words were binding on him, so why should he care. Hrafn ignored the angel. Gabriel was just discomfited, and wanted to go spy on Vali, even though the fosterage agreement meant they would have plenty of excuses to visit the Koehler home. Hrafn thought the boy had done fine for three decades of Gabriel's absence, and the wards the archangel had laid on him at birth were enough. He remembered being awakened for that – drawing runes over the squalling newborn in the empty Christian temple, using the blessed water to protect Gabriel's child against enemies and danger and death, and then falling back into slumber as the archangel left his son for humans to find and raise. Fortunately for Vali, Christians were tender-hearted in these days, and would adopt a foundling, instead of exposing one. The boy had done well enough for himself, with a wife and a child and a respectable position in the town.

'He's a cop. Why is he a cop?'

'It's an honorable profession as people count things in these days, eagle-chieftain.'

'But he was always a soldier before...'

'You are whining. And ridiculous. Take joy in Vali's success – he's a respected man here.'

'Bullshit. He's a cop. A lot of the people here loath cops on principle.'

'You are never satisfied, are you, eagle-chieftain?'

 

Jake stopped by the Richmond farm a few days after Bonnie hired the refugees, just to check. He knew it was something Stanley would have wanted to him to do, if he'd known about it. But Stanley was over in New Bern, helping build wind turbines (being a hostage, whispered an angry part of Jake's mind, still furious at Constantino, and at Mayor Andersen for ceding to that demand.)

"So, how's things working out, with the new farmhands?" he asked Bonnie.

Bonnie rolled her eyes at him, signing and speaking at once, "Good. You didn't have to come, Jake. I'm fine, Mimi's fine. Sean is fine. Kat and Hrafn and Sam," that was three new signs, 'K' at the shoulder, 'S' at the temple, 'H' along the jaw – indicating his beard, Jake realized, and wouldn't that be an odd name-sign if he ever shaved it, "we're all fine."

"I had to ask," Jake said.

Bonnie gave him a flat stare, and then turned away, walking off and not looking at him.

"Crap..." Jake sighed.

Mimi walked up on the porch, with a basket of eggs just as Jake was about to bang his head into the post in frustration.

"Bad day already, Jake?"

"I have no idea how to talk to teenagers."

Mimi blinked, and then her face pulled up into a puckish grin. "No one does, because no one can. Everything you can possibly say to them is wrong."

"Now you tell me... Seriously, Mimi, how are the refugees working out?"

"Pretty well. Adding another teenager to the farm, I wasn't so sure would work out, but Kat seems like a good kid. She keeps busy with her cattle, and reads Bonnie's old textbooks. I think she misses school – do you have any idea when the high school will re-open?"

"Not for another month at least," Jake said. He'd casually asked Emily about that, and gotten a furious lecture on the inadequacies of the town government and why none of the high school students would be coming back until their families didn't need their labor, and why it was all his fault, and Mayor Andersen's fault, and his dad's fault. When he'd pointed out that his dad wasn't mayor anymore, and he'd hadn't been back in town a week when the bombs fell, he'd gotten a withering look and a cold shoulder.

"Hmm," Mimi said, and flipped open a battered spiral bound notebook, like the kind Bonnie might carry to school, and began making notes.

"What are you doing?" he asked, looking over her shoulder to see a grid with names and numbers.

"Tracking the egg production."

"Oh..."

Mimi looked up at him with cool knowing eyes. "Anything else, Jake?"

"How are those men working out... they've been behaving themselves?" Jake was a little worried – they had rode into town with kids they could have left anywhere in tow, so they couldn't be all bad, but you never knew.

Mimi laughed at him, flat out laughed at him. "Jake, if you're worried that Sam and Hrafn are going to do anything, you are barking up the wrong three."

"What?"

Mimi smirked and pointed a finger at him. "They're gay, Jake."

"...what?!" Jake sputtered.

"Do you know any straight guys who would voluntarily share a bed?"

"Normally no, but we're heading into winter..."

"They didn't even ask for separate rooms, just took the guest room with the double bed."

"Oh."

"And they're really hard workers. I don't think Sam did much farm work before, but he's a decent mechanic, and Hrafn knows almost as much as Bonnie, and a lot more about using hand tools. If it wasn't for that goofy accent, I'd think he was raised Mennonite or something..."

"His accent isn't that weird..."

"He sounds like the bastard love-child of Elmer Fudd and the Swedish Chef, Jake, and you know it."

Jake had to concede that Mimi had a point. "So everything is okay?"

Mimi smiled, and it was such a breathtakingly pretty smile that Jake found himself envious of Stanley's good fortune, that Mimi had dropped into his lap even in such a horrible time as the aftermath of the September Attacks. "We're fine, Jake. Go home."

 

Mimi was dreaming of home – her condo in DC, right near Barracks Row – and of Stanley with his adorable smile and his aw-shucks attitude when suddenly she wasn't. She was on a beach, her picnic blanket underneath her on a bluff, looking down at a cold gray sea.

"This isn't the Chesapeake," Mimi said. She took regular trips down to the Eastern shore to enjoy the weekend on the beaches.

"Nope, but that is the Atlantic. Well, Baltic, actually," a cheerful voice corrected itself.

Mimi turned to look, but the person beside her remained formless and indistinct, which told her she was still dreaming.

"The Baltic?"

"Yup."

"Why am I dreaming about Europe? I mean, I like Europe, but the shopping, not the beaches. If I wanted beaches, I can find nice ones closer to home."

"What, you never wanted to go to the Riviera?" the person beside her asked.

"Not when I can hit haute couture houses of Paris – what are they DOING down there?!" Mimi asked, peering down the bluff. There were people wading in the surf, throwing and pulling nets.

"I think we were fishing for cod," the voice said. "I remember this day... definitely, fishing for cod."

And suddenly Mimi was down on the beach, among people who were dressed in clothes that were shapeless and ugly and probably homemade, and a dark-haired woman was handing her a loaf of bread and a mug of pungent beer.

"Eat, eat, my dear," the woman said. "You're too thin." She pressed Mimi's hands around the bread and patted her cheek before moving off and yelling at twin boys who were running around causing mischief as women around them cooked and preserved fish that the men out in the surf were netting.

"Sorry about that. Sigyn mothered everyone," Mimi's companion said.

"What?" Mimi said. She looked down at the food, which really, she hated dreaming about food, though she did it almost every night now. It was just a horrible tease, food that she could eat in dreams but not in reality. She'd wake up, and instead of cheesecake and tiramisu and wonderfully perfect tenderloin, she'd have a meals of bean sprouts and sorghum groats and if she was really fortunate, an egg or two. She was beginning to hate sprouts – everyone already hated sorghum, and grits, and all the other ways they'd found to make corn and sorghum and even soybeans into semi-palatable food.

Even apples were beginning to pale – Stanley's farm had a home orchard, and Mimi was allowed an apple a day, for the vitamin C, but the sameness of her diet was driving her mad.

"Sigyn. She mothered everyone, our boys, my son –" Mimi's companion nodded to the twin boys and an older teen with darker skin, reddish hair, and the same unfortunate nose "– me, even Tyr. I loved her more than I thought I would, after Angrboda. It surprised me. I didn't think I'd love anyone like her, and I loved Sigyn like I loved my brothers."

"I don't know what you're talking about?" Mimi said, and suddenly they were at her favorite garden in DC, the little one that meandered between the Hirshorn and the Arts and Industries Museum. She was sitting on the swan bench, and instead of bread and fish, she was holding a half-smoke in her hand.

That was just not fair. She hadn't had a sausage, not even a horrible gas station hot dog, in weeks, let alone a half-smoke.

"Thanks for letting us stay, that's what I'm saying."

Mimi looked around at the narrow garden with its annuals and perennials, and sighed. She looked sideways at her companion, with the white flowers tucked behind his ears, and said, "Are you doing this?"

"I'm trying to talk to you. You're the one who keeps pulling up memories. I'd prefer it if you stayed out of mine. They make it harder to talk to you."

"You're really bored, aren't you?"

"You have no idea," her companion sighed. "You have no idea how boring farm chores are to watch. It's been less than a week, but if I have to watch another hour of haying..."

"Do you have any idea how boring it is to hay? Why are you complaining?" Mimi snapped back.

"Hey, at least you get to work! It's mind-numbing but distracting. Just watching, that's boring.

Mimi pointed her finger and snapped, "Well, you could help! It's not like we don't have more than enough work to do."

Her companion laughed. "You think I'm not helping? You are totally wrong. I am so helping!"

"Prove it! Until you prove it, you're just a freeloader!"

The angel lifted his eyebrows in surprise, lifted his wings in surprise, and Mimi, shocked to realize he was an angel, watched everything dissolve into colored confetti.

She awoke with a gasp, and the disgruntled realization that she hadn't even tried the half-smoke. If she was going to dream about food, she should have at least been able to taste it.

 

Sunday morning Bill followed Jimmy and Jake towards Gracie Leigh's store, and frowned at the firewood stacked just inside the doors. It smelled like sawdust, and wet, green sawdust at that.

"Anything I can do for you, Mr. Green, Deputy Taylor, Deputy Koehler?" chirped the girl behind the counter. Bill sighed – Skylar wasn't the kind of girl who got in trouble, but that was because it didn't do for sheriff's deputies to notice too much the shenanigans of the family of the man who owned half of the town's largest employer, especially his only daughter.

"Skylar," Jake began, then stopped. He glanced at Jimmy – Bill saw it clearly – but not to Bill and sighed heavily. "Skylar, where are you getting the firewood?"

"We buy it from people willing to sell," she said. That was true, Bill didn't doubt that the store was buying any fuel people were willing to sell. The mark-up, even on gasoline gone stale from bad storage, was considerable.

"Where are they getting it from?"

Skylar shrugged, "Extra from their wood piles, I guess..."

Bill poked at one of the stacks. Those weren't hackberry branches bundled up for burning, or cottonwood. The grain looked dense and the wood smelled of fresh cutting.

"Not from their trees?" Bill asked, not actually looking at the girl.

"Well, from their trees originally, but from their woodpiles now," Skylar explained.

Bill turned to look at her directly, frowning. "Who's got oak trees to cut down?"

"What?" Skylar asked, distracted from her tale to Jimmy and Bill.

"This is hardwood, and fresh. We don't have a lot of hardwoods, locally. Just a few oaks, planted in the town park at the turn of the century, and farmers' fruit trees."

"I guess someone had an old oak, maybe a dying one?"

Jimmy signed, and explained, "The problem is, Skylar, there's been a rash of tree thefts."

"Tree thefts? How do you steal a tree?" she bleated.

"A group of people come onto a farm in the evening when the owners aren't paying attention, and cut down a tree, maybe two or three."

"How does that involve me?

:"if you and Dale are involved in this," Jake warned.

"We're not cutting down trees," Skylar whined again.

"Someone is, and that got someone dead last night," Bill snapped, finally losing his temper with her obvious lying.

The gasp she squeaked out was genuine, so maybe her lies weren't all spite and bullshitting.

Jimmy stepped up, "Someone killed Jeff Hendricks along the edge of his property, Skylar. There were a bunch of trees fresh-cut from the windbreak where we found him. No one has offered you any new timber for firewood, have they?"

Skylar shook her head.

"You'll tell us if anyone does? We have to stop this before someone else gets hurt, Skylar."

The girl nodded frantically.

After a bit more assurances from the girl that she'd contact them if anyone tried to sell her suspicious fire-wood, they left.

"That hardwood she an Dale are selling was stolen," Bill growled.

"Probably, but we can't prove it."

Jake just sighed and said, "Hopefully we cut off the thieves' main buyer, and there won't be – what, why are you looking at me like that?"

"You really don't have any clue about crime in Jericho, do you Jake?" Bill asked.

Jake shuffled his feet, and glanced away.

Jimmy sighed. "They'll keep buying stolen wood, but we know that is where it is going now. We just have to see who is selling when they don't have trees to cut."

"Oh..."

"We'll make a cop out of you yet, Jake." Bill laughed at Jake's wide-eyed stare at that.

 

Church the first Sunday after they were hired was interesting. Bonnie attended the town's Presbyterian church, and thus Mimi did too. Sam was quite willing to follow along. He'd never been attached to any one denomination, having moved around too much as a child, and it hardly mattered to him where he went as long as he was seen to attend.

Blending in was important. The fact that his faith in God had been shattered in the last two years – actually meeting angels was really detrimental to believing in an omnibenevolent deity – meant Sam felt a little guilty for using other people's faith to manipulate them into thinking he was a normal guy.

Hrafn trailed along quietly and fumbled through the service worse than Sam did. He didn't have any idea of the sequence of kneeling, standing and prayer, and he couldn't follow along in the hymnal either. Gabriel was obviously either not awake or not able to help him, since Hrafn's accent had thickened the way it did when he was tired.

Sam felt bad for the Norseman; the act of churchgoing was supposed to bring one into a community – that's certainly what Sam used it for – but Hrafn was even more of an outsider than usual. The meet and greet after the service just emphasized it, because Hrafn got that 'bristling cat' look that meant danger, just before he disappeared out the door.

Sam founded him later, in the church's side yard, looking contemplatively at a statue of Mary.

"Hrafn?"

The Norseman turned to look at him, his eyes deep and eerie.

"Ah, we're finished here?"

"I was talking to the Lady," Hrafn said, gesturing to the statute.

Sam noted the prick marks on Hrafn's fingers, and the bloodstains at the statute's base. Gabriel alone knew what gods Hrafn had prayed to, still prayed to for all Sam knew, but Sam hadn't ever gotten a coherent answer from the other man.

'Gabriel?' Sam nudged out with his mind, trying to see how the archangel was.

'What?' came the response, tinted with cranky exhaustion.

'Just checking.'

'Go away, Sam. I'm basking. It's holy ground...'

'Lazy archangel.'

'I'm tired...' Gabriel's mental voice colored with petulance. Sam got the impression that the archangel was pulling a metaphorical pillow over his metaphorical head.

Sam smiled, and realized Hrafn was looking at him with those disconcertingly sharp eyes.

"Gabriel's whining."

"Yes," Hrafn said. "More to me than you, I think. He is like a child, is Asvald."

"Oh," Sam said. "Right." Sam only talked to the archangel. Hrafn had him as running commentary in his head night and day.

They met up with Mimi and Bonnie on the church steps, and walked over to Bailey's for news. Not that there was much of it, with the radio spotty at best. But someone generally was there to take notes, and Mary pinned up the latest news on the wall for everyone to see.

Sam's skin crawled to see more from Cheyenne. He hadn't talked much about what happened in Sioux Falls with anyone, and hearing that those usurpers were succeeding in their grab for power just made him angry and tired.

It was his utter failure to stop things that ate at him. He had tried, desperately, futilely – every man and woman that Sheriff Millls had mustered had tried, because they had been getting the broadcasts relayed from Columbus, and were actually law-abiding citizens. Well, most of them – Sam couldn't rightly call himself law-abiding or Bobby, but they tried not to hurt people, and Adam had been a normal civilian kid, before their father's deeds had come to roost on him. The Allied States, or whatever they were calling themselves, were just grabbing power in the wake of disaster, and killing anyone who resisted too well. All the morality of angels, really – obey or be destroyed. Bastards.

"Here. Drink," Hrafn said, and slid a mason jar of clear liquid across the booth at him.

"What is it?" Sam said, sniffing at the liquor.

"Terrible," Hrafn said, and sipped at his own jarful.

Sam couldn't agree with Hrafn's assessment more when he tried the moonshine himself. "Ugh. That's... awful."

'Really awful,' Gabriel added voicelessly, 'I want Sambuca. Or mead. Mead would be nice...'

"Mead would be nice," Hrafn agreed aloud. "Hmmm. Sam, do you think we could find enough hives?"

"You want to make mead?" Sam blinked. "Wait, you know how to make mead? Oh, of course you do."

"Beehives, Sam."

"I don't know. You'd have to ask around. This is wheat and corn country – I don't know if people keep bees here. They're for fruits, aren't they?"

Hrafn shrugged, and winced as he ventured another sip of the moonshine. "I think ... this is better as fuel than food."

"Diesel," Sam muttered.

"Lamp fuel," Hrafn agreed.

Sam sighed, and watched Mimi converse with more townsfolk. Bonnie had disappeared into a knot of teenagers in a corner. He should get up and mix, meet people, figure out the lay of the land. But he was tired as anything. The road had ground him down, and even a week of relatively ease, working the long hours on Bonnie's farm, hadn't been enough of a rest.

He looked vaguely out the window, sighing. The bar served them horrible paint-stripper moonshine, and bland fried polenta for a small amount of the cash they had earned in the week. This was his life now, for the foreseeable future... he missed Dean like he would miss his arm, and he rued that he hadn't had the courage to contact his brother before September, and the bombs.

 

Bill had already decided that he was going to have to turn Zap back over to Gail Green. He'd been riding the mare on patrol, but she hadn't been in the best of condition to start with, being one of Gail's rescues from the livestock auction. After escaping from the meat buyer by virtue of her shiny bay coat (Gail loved her bays) and nice trot but she had pulled up lame. Zap hadn't done to bad, all in all, but the fact was no one had time to pamper a horse that came up lame now. There was going to be no bute injections, no special feed or carefully stepped up exercise for conditioning.

Bill needed a horse that could ride on Ranger patrol, and ride around town, now that the gasoline was either used up, under strict rationing for the emergency vehicles, or outright (and awfully) stale. A horse, or a motorbike, and no one who had either wanted to sell, and even if you could get a price, it was for way too much money for either.

A new horse would still need feeding and water, but hopefully it could take Zap's place at the newly put-up community stables. Bill would have liked a motorbike, but those were too hard to come by, and you had to make your own alcohol for use in the diesel engines now. Gasoline was impossible to get – making your own fuel from anything that would possibly ferment was the only way to go.

Gail had taken one look at Zap when he'd walked the mare over to the Green house one day before his shift, and hung her head. The vet had agreed – pasture rest might let Zap recover, but she'd be lame for a while and unrideable. Gail suggested seeing if Winchester and Friththjófsson had any remaining horses for lease, and thus he planned to ride to the Richmond farm the next day after the milk delivery.

Linh thought it was great that he walked with her to school in the morning, and tried monopolizing his attention – she had seemed to be coping with Jenny and Eric living these past three weeks, but that didn't mean she wasn't a little jealous, especially of Ríkvé who took up a lot of his and Kim's attention, what with being a baby and all.

Going back to the farm with Mimi Clark and Sam Winchester, he learned several things – Mimi talked too much, she missed Washington (several million people in 70 square miles, sounded like Hell to Bill), and she subtly disapproved of Sean Henthorn but didn't want to do it openly because she was afraid Bonnie would do something stupid and teenagerish if she did. Bill approved of that reasoning; he'd know Bonnie since she was a baby, and had learned ASL along with most of Stanley's school friends so that she would have people to talk to growing up. No one wanted her to run off with Sean Henthorn, especially now. Sam Winchester, he didn't talk too much, and he seemed very focused on his work, but something about him just niggled at Bill, even when the tall man had nodded and agreed that Bill could probably lease one of his horses – except that he'd have to talk to Hrafn Friththjófsson, because he was the one who knew horses, not Sam.

 

Sam explained that the deputy wanted to lease one of their horses. He'd already arranged with Mimi to pasture his lamed mare – a beautiful bay with a lightning bolt blaze down her nose, that Hrafn would have bought and sacrificed to Thor in the days before his angel – and needed a horse that could withstand patrol and use. Hrafn sighed – two horses would be best, to rotate days of rest and work, but they only have enough remounts themselves, really.

'He really doesn't see, does he?' Gabriel murmured. 'I do good work.'

'Stop preening, angel. You didn't do the runes. I did the runes.' Hrafn remembered the way the infant had stared at him, in that temple of the White Christ, wet with blessed water, the protective runes fading into his skin. He'd been so small this time round, and so vulnerable, and his eyes so ageless and sad.

'Potato, puh-tato'

Hrafn escorted Bill (who Hrafn remembered as a Vali, a dark boy with green eyes, inseparable from his brother, like two peas in a pod, and so many other children, born and reborn in the angel's continuing attempts to save one thing from the ruins of his life with Sigyn) to the paddocks where the horses were turned out, mares on one, geldings and Slipper on the other. There were Bonnie's tall, beautiful, spoiled bays, the piebald giants Spot and Socks that Sam rode, Hrafn's spotted Skalm, Jarpstjarni with his star on his brown head, and yellow Fífilla, Katla's bays Snookums and Chance, and grey Kolfaxi with his dark mane, dappled Gjálp and Greip resting to take their turn tomorrow drawing the farm wagon, and Slipper, more handsome than all the rest and as the only stallion quite proud of his beauty and his balls.

Of course, it was Slipper who saw Bill first, and Slipper who pushed his way forward to prance and dance for the deputy. He might have been the best of all horses, but he could be obnoxious as a child.

"Hey, boy," Bill said, and rubbed Slipper's velvet nose.

'Mama! It's one of the BABIES!' rang through Hrafn's head. He winced at the force of it.

'Oh for the love of – yes, it's one of the babies. Calm down, you loon!' Gabriel grumbled.

'Hi, Baby!' Slipper sang, and presented his neck for Bill to scratch.

Hrafn just sighed, and tried to ignore the stallion's excitement.

"Who is this?" Bill asked, even as he scratched Slipper's neck, much to the horse's delight.

"Slipper."

"Can I have him?" Bill asked, obviously already entranced by Slipper's perfection and enthusiasm, and tolerating the horse's attempts to lick him.

'Baby, Mama, baby!'

"He's my stallion... but he seems to like you."

Bill frowned, and then examined Slipper with his eyes. "Huh... he's not acting like a stallion."

"He has manners. Enough not to try the fences no matter how pretty the mares are."

"I can't take him into town..."

"He's my best horse – strongest, most enduring. You need the best for patrolling, Gail Green had said."

"I suppose we could get him gelded..."

'Fuck no!' his angel howled.

"No. He is best of horses. No one here has better."

Bill frowned, and looked at Slipper, with his strong sturdy hooves, his powerful, compact body, his broad flat head and soft eyes. He was gorgeous, slate grey with his mane roached up to show the dark stripe in the center, and his tail full, both pale and dark. How could Bill not want him to ride? Hrafn waited, as Bill thought and considered.

"How much will it cost? To lease him, since Sam said you won't sell?"

Hrafn grinned. "We will negotiate. And then go to an advocate for a contract. Nice and legal."

"You don't trust a cop?" Bill cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Of course I do. But I want a written contract."

Bill gave him a look, one that reminded him of Gabriel so much that it made him laugh.

'I never looked like that!'

'Yes, you did. I saw you doing that all the time, looking in reflections, you vain thing.'

'Hmmmf!' Gabriel sniffed, and turned silvery and small in Hrafn's mind, curling up like an insulted cat.

"Would you like to go up to the house to talk? There will be tea."

Bill nodded and followed him up to the farmhouse and the warm kitchen.

 

Part Two: Strange dances long undone

It was Jake's luck to stop after patrol at the Richmond place to warn about the continuing tree thefts when they're slaughtering another cow – this one for themselves, which was why they were doing it at home, instead of driving the animal to the locker plant. The weather was turning even harsher as winter deepened, and they had decided that butchering a pregnant cow or two would save grain for the rest that might be sorely needed before spring would bring back the grass.

Jake watched as Hrafn and Sam brought the unlucky cow out to the big cottonwood. The shorter man was whispering soothingly in the half-wild animal's ear even as Sam readied the tackle and pulley. Jake was a little surprised at the way Hrafn slit the cow's throat, neat and fast, and caught most of the erupting blood in a bucket. Jake wouldn't have managed such a clean kill with a knife – though not having to shoot the cow made the part of Jake that worried over every expended bullet happy.

Jake helped Sam wrap the ropes around the cow's hind legs and haul the carcass into the air while Hrafn held the head off the ground, away from the dirt.

He backed up a step when Hrafn stripped off his shirts and stepped forward slice the belly open.

"Jesus! Hrafn, you look like you lost a fight with an axe murderer!" Jake yelped.

Hrafn cocked his head, and then looked down at his own scarred torso. There were raised and running welts all over him, jagged remains of horrible wounds. The older man smirked at Jake's startlement, and tilted his head.

"I didn't lose the fight, and he was a Geat," Hrafn said, and flashed a grin, before he went back to skinning and butchering the cow.

Jake stared at Hrafn, and the horrible scars on his side, and the blurry blue dashes – tattoos? – on one side of his spine, and over his shoulder. They dotted into his scar tissue, giving Hrafn's back the appearance of a paper airplane – 'fold on the dotted line' – but for the twisting scars.

Jake was enlisted in carrying slices of meat on clean pans either into the house for Mimi to deal with or to the smokehouse with Sam to hang for curing. He stayed until even he couldn't stomach it anymore – when Hrafn opened the swollen uterus and a half-formed calf fell out, Jake decided the better part of valor was in the kitchen with Bonnie and Mimi.

 

A lifetime of hunting hadn't prepared Sam for how visceral and mess slaughtering an animal for meat was. Usually, when he killed something, he made sure it was dead and then set it on fire. Very few monsters required more than decapitation – organ removal and dismemberment were just not things had done Sam on a regular basis.

So Sam focused on hanging cuts of meat in the smokehouse when Hrafn started skinning the fetal calf. He just couldn't watch anymore. Yeah, it was cowardly, but he didn't have anything to prove to Hrafn – it wasn't like Hrafn was Dean, always pushing to prove himself more macho than thou.

Hrafn came around the door with another tray of meat – Sam didn't give it more than a glance for fear it was fetal calf.

'Squeamish, aren't you? For someone who used to gut black dogs –' Sam heard. Gabriel was deigning to talk to Sam again, after being quiet for most of the week. Sam would have been worried, but it hadn't felt like Gabriel was weak, just surly.

'Black dogs are monsters. This was just a cow. It's different,' Sam replied.

Gabriel contracted into a dense feeling, like he was shrugging, even as Hrafn looked up from the joint he was cutting up and rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, he's being a brat today, isn't he?"

Hrafn shrugged his shoulders, making the animal tattoo that wrapped around from his back over to his front dance. "He often is. He can do nothing, and so bites with his words."

"Sucks to be him," Sam laughed, and liked the way Hrafn laughed at that.

 

'What are you considering, Hrafn?'

'Sam. He is quite... virile.'

'No, Hrafn, just no. I let you have your prayers and your sacrificed cow. Anything more is just a bad idea,' his angel said.

'It is a season of disaster and hunger. What would you have me do? Pray to

your

Father? Even you do not believe he will answer.'

That shut his angel up, quite neatly.

Sam took the last of the meat from him, and stepped into the smokehouse to hang it. Hrafn followed him in, and tugged the door shut after himself. The firepit was barely smoldering, as the smoke seeped in the vent, and the high ceiling channeled it up where the cuts dangled. Hrafn thought they had done a good job, especially with the desperate shortage of wood to build with, or proper stone either.

He spent some time helping Sam adjust the meat, spacing everything to good advantage, as they had more than enough room. Hrafn had insisted on building it large enough for two cows at once, after all, and even closing the front half off to concentrate the smoke as they had just meant there was going to be a private enough place for what Hrafn planned.

Finally, they were done, and Sam was smiling at him, his teeth very white as weak sunlight crept through the smoke hole. "God, what a mess. I'm glad that's finished."

"I am too," Hrafn said, and patted Sam's back, a comrade's touch that Sam could take for more, if he wanted to. Hrafn ventured a sweet smile, trying to remember the lessons in flattery he had learned, after the troll and before the angel, when the gods had called him unwilling to service.

Sam seemed amenable, bumping against Hrafn as he wiped sweat from his brow and leaned against one of the support beams. "You sore too? I swear, weeks working cattle doesn't prepare anyone for actually butchering one."

Hrafn ran his hand up over Sam's strong back, pressing his thumb into the knotted muscle. "I am fine. You, however–"

"Oh," Sam said, his voice going throaty, "just keep doing that."

"All right," Hrafn said, a little surprised. He hadn't expected Sam to be quite that amenable. But when he pressed his fingers into Sam's back and the man only pushed back, he realized that Sam truly was sore and seeking relief, so he tried rubbing out the knots. He pushed at Sam's hard muscles, finding the tighter places and working them, until they came undone, like ropes unknotting. It took much time, and Hrafn's own hands were sore by the time Sam pulled away.

"I shouldn't have let you do that. You did as much work as me – more."

"I did not mind–"

"Hrafn," Sam said, grabbing his hands, and rubbing at the base of his thumbs, where they now ached, "I know you've got this macho tough guy thing going on, but you don't have to be like that with me. Not all the time."

Hrafn blinked, and looked up into Sam's serious face. He looked so very kind. So Hrafn raised his hands, putting them on Sam's face even as Sam huffed in surprise, and tugged him down, just far enough to kiss when he stretched up on his feet.

Sam snorted in surprise, jerking away for a moment, then surging forward and taking control. Surprised, Hrafn almost fell over, which lead to Sam giggling at him, and catching him before he fell on his ass. But as he was already halfway to the floor, Hrafn just smiled and crouched down, his hands flying to Sam's waist as he tried to work out how to open his trousers from this angle. The clothing of these days was so complicated – what was wrong with drawstrings, anyway?

"Oh... you don't … Hrafn..." Sam moaned as Hrafn fumbled at Sam's belt. He managed to unzip the trousers without catching anything, which considering their wicked little teeth, he felt was a great accomplishment. Sam wore more layers, of course, but they went down easily under their combined fingers, and then it was just Sam's prick, warm and exposed. When Hrafn gave the head – strange and naked without a foreskin – an exploratory lick, Sam made a gratifying sound, and moved his hands to Hrafn's shoulders, clenching and kneading like a cat.

Hrafn used his hands, rubbing at Sam's balls in their sac, and his mouth, pressing, kissing, flicking his tongue down the shaft as Sam hardened under his efforts. When Sam had a hard cock-stand, Hrafn pulled back to look up Sam, and smiled at the liquid heat in his eyes. Sam gasped, as Hrafn leaned forward, just enough for the head to rest against his lips, teasing with a flick of his tongue.

"Oh please," Sam groaned. "Oh please, can you... can I?" Sam whined, one of his hands coming up to brush Hrafn's cheek, warm as his thumb brushed Hrafn's mouth and pressed against his lips. Hrafn allowed Sam to do that, opened his mouth delicately and licked at Sam's thumb, making Sam whimper. He let Sam pull him forward, press him forward as Sam's other hand wrapped around the back of his neck. Sam might be smoky and sweaty, but it was from honest work, and otherwise he was clean, he was safe, he was making happy growls as he rocked into Hrafn's mouth shallowly.

This went on for a little while, with Sam clenching and kneading at Hrafn's nape with one hand as he held himself with the other, only allowing himself short, shallow thrusts. It occurred to him that Sam was being careful with him, which he might have found sweet, but it just annoyed him. Sam had a large prick, yes, but Hrafn knew what do to do with one of those – Sam didn't need to control himself so tightly. He grabbed at Sam's wrist, pulled down until his hand dropped off his own shaft and Hrafn could twist and breathe and push himself until he'd coated Sam all over with spit.

Then he drew back, and looked up at Sam again.

The other man looked confused, disappointed, and tried to bring his own hand up to finish himself off before Hrafn grabbed him again. Hrafn stood, forcing Sam's hands up, and went on tiptoe to kiss him again. When he drew away, Sam followed, nuzzling at the air as if he wanted another kiss. Hrafn obliged him, letting Sam's hands fall to caress his shoulders as he dropped his own hands to his belt and undid it.

"Hrafn?" Sam whispered as Hrafn shoved down the zipper and turned, peeling slaughter-smirched jeans off his thighs. He put a hand on one of the wooden support beam, and canted a knee up against a wooden shelf. He turned to look over his shoulder, and smiled at Sam's wide-eyed shock.

"Now, Sam," he said.

Sam stumbled forward after a long moment, and wrapped his arms around Hrafn. His huge hands were warm and comforting, and Hrafn leaned into them even as Sam rubbed against him inexpertly.

"This isn't going to– Here, over here," Sam muttered into Hrafn's ear and clutched him tight, moving him bodily until he was kneeling up on the shelf, and Sam was looming over him. "There, that's better," Sam said, and gave him a long look, his hands still wrapped around Hrafn's chest. "You're... amazing, you know that?" Sam muttered, and leaned down to kiss him again, before shifting behind and sliding his spit-slicked prick between Hrafn's thighs.

The pressure and movement felt good enough that it took Hrafn a moment to realize Sam was content just to fuck between his thighs, as if he was too delicate to be fucked in truth.

"Sam," he said, turning and frowning over his shoulder.

"Hmmm?"

Hrafn pushed Sam back with a hand, just enough to reach back blindly to grasp Sam's prick and position him where he wanted.

"You– you sure, Hrafn?"

"Yes, Sam."

"I should... I don't know, spit can't–"

"Sam Winchester, if you do not fuck me right now, I am kicking you to the floor and will ride you until you are so wet with sweat that Mimi will think you're an abused horse when she finds you later, sprawled and limp with exhaustion."

Sam laughed. "Well, when you put it like that..."

Hrafn rolled his eyes and then yelped and scrabbled at the wall as Sam pushed into him, slow and barely slick and quite huge. Hrafn felt like he was going to burst, like he was going to piss himself, and he was ever so grateful when Gabriel roused out of his sulk enough to say, 'Hush, hush, I have you, my pretty bird. I have you.'

His angel was in him again, soothing his asshole as it was stretched open with much enthusiasm and too little slick. Sam was in him, and Gabriel was making it good, bearable, enough that he could groan and gasp and mutter prayer to Thor the Thunderer, to Tyr, to Frigg and Freyja and all those who might help them in this season of want. It was enough, and maybe this was enough for the gods to consider trading the death of cows for life of people.

He could only pray.

 

Afterward, after they stumbled back to the barnyard pump and sluiced off every bit of gore and sweat and fluid under the icy water, Sam felt like he was walking through a dream.

Bonnie had come out with towels – warmed towels – to wrap themselves in then, and brought down their sleepwear – Sam's loose sweats, and Hrafn's borrowed pajamas – for them to change into in the living room.

The kitchen was toasty, and Mimi had panfried some of the beef over the fire along with a few slices of precious potato. Sam gobbled his dinner with enthusiasm, and then yawned badly. Jake had laughed, and told them they were lucky to be off patrol for a few days – Hrafn and Sam were only half time on the roster, anyway, being more valuable for working the farm, and not quite trusted because of their status as refugees for hire.

Sam nodded, and went upstairs, tugging Hrafn after him. He wanted his bed, and he wanted to curl up with Hrafn and kiss him again, wanted to feel the strangeness of it, of lips and beard and masculine sweat.

Which is why he was confused when Hrafn pushed him away, firmly but gently, and turned his face away from Sam. The Norseman made it obvious that he was not going to do anything else with Sam that night.

'Sorry, kiddo. I didn't know that he was going to do that...'

'Did I..?' Sam gulped. 'Did I do something wrong?'

Gabriel felt cool and blue, heavy like embarrassment and regret. 'No. You didn’t, Sam. You just expected more than Hrafn though you would...'

'I thought he had a good time,' Sam said. Hrafn had... he'd been moaning, long soft sounds, that had sounded like pleasure, not regret. And he'd orgasmed, shuddered in Sam's arms and in his hands.

'He did. But that's wasn't the point for him.'

'then what was?'

'Sacrifice...'

"WHAT?!" Sam hissed fiercely.

'Sacrifice. You give up what you value – a pregnant cow, you guys lost all the potential milk, plus the calf – that's a lot to give to a god.'

'And the sex...?'

'I'm sorry, Sam. That was another... it... the Norse looked at things different. A man having sex with a man, the guy getting done, he was considered unmanly, lost status and respect...'

Sam felt his face go cold and grey. 'Hrafn had sex with me to get Thor's attention, to give up his status as a man. He made it into a sacrifice.'

'Sorry, Sammy. Thor's a fertility god – sex gets his attention.'

'Does he like me at all? Or was I just convenient...'

'Hrafn wouldn't have trusted anyone else, Sam. He likes you, maybe not the way you want, as a lover, but he let you do something to him that he thinks you could ruin him with. It's trust, if not love.'

'Does he get that people already think we're a gay couple?'

'No, not really. It wasn't true, for one.'

'Except that now... crap, Gabriel, I don't care that everyone thinks we're fucking. I don't even care that we are fucking. But I don't want to be having sex with someone who doesn't want it.'

'It's not that he didn't want it, Sam. It's that he didn't want

you.'

Sam had no answer for that, so he just pulled his blankets tight, and tried to burrow into the bed, ignoring Hrafn's warm presence as best he could.

'Sam,' Gabriel felt blue again, compressed small and almost timid with regret, 'just ask him what happened, before he said yes to me. I think you need to know...'

'Why can't you tell me?'

'Because it's Hrafn's story, not mine, and that matters to humans.'

 

It was the middle of the night, when Hrafn stirred again. Sam hadn't managed to sleep well, waking up too often and peering worriedly at Hrafn in the dim candlelight.

"Gabriel said I should ask you about your past, about what happened before you two met..."

Hrafn shrugged. "It's the past. Why should you care?"

"You're still carrying it with you, Hrafn. I care."

"There is not much to tell, Sam. I was born of Hrimhild Vagnisdottir and Friththof Oddsson, into the Fox Clan. We held all the land from the Walrus Tongue to the branching of the little river. I was a good child, and I grew to be a good man, I thought, respectful of the gods, honorable among men, and fair-dealing. I married a woman I grew to love, we had fine children, and my people prospered."

"The year after my oldest daughter married, a monster – a troll – attacked my hall. It slew my wife, my brother, everyone who was there, and carried off the children. I was away at a whale beaching, with half our people. We came back to disaster." Hrafn paused, looking away into some past that was filled with horror.

"I followed the monster into the hills, killed it, and thought it was over... but misfortune lingered, even into after the elf-feast, and we finally called for a wisewoman – a völva."

"She cast peeled bark and knucklebones for me, in front of my clan. The omens were the worst – I could have withstood death easier – no man escapes his hour or his day, but this was not as clean as death – she accused me of being draugr, saying that I had died out on that mountain, chasing that monster, and that I walked back to haunt my people all unaware."

"Seriously?" Sam said.

'Yeah, she did.'

"My younger brothers drew spears against me, and forced me out of my home. I only escaped because they didn't quite have the sinew to stab me as I looked at them." Hrafn hunched down, his shoulders braced against a betrayal two thousand years in the past. "The völva, she chanted against spirits while my kin burned all my possessions, and a bole of wood in place of my corpse."

Sam thought for a moment, "They buried you in effigy?"

Hrafn shrugged. "It was a nice funeral, as far as those things go. I just – the völva found me later, distraught in the field, and cut my hair off while she sang enchantments. I never figured out if she truly had thought I was a ghost she could leash, or just thought it was the easiest way to turn my people against me. But she had me, and she sent me far away to her teacher, a great witch in the north country..."

Hrafn hunched even more, and pulled the blanket tighter. "She was no fool; I – she said the monster's blood – I was drenched in it, when I finally killed it – had awakened me – "

'He was having visions.' Gabriel added. 'He'd been minorly psychic before – just enough to be lucky – but the troll's blood propped him wide open.'

"So she told me I wasn't dead, told me I wasn't leaving, and taught me seid..."

'That was women's magic. Strictly women's magic,' Gabriel added.

"You're a guy," Sam said.

Hrafn rubbed his nose.

"How'd she get away with teaching a man women's magic?"

"I wasn't a man when I came to her. I was draugr – a walking ghost. She made me live again, but... I wasn't a man."

Sam's eyebrows rose.

"If I had no beard, and wore no men's clothes, who was to say I was a man..? A völva can teach an apprentice, when she finds a woman with the sight."

"So you – I – uhm—" Sam shifted uncomfortably. "You know I know you're a man, right?"

That got Hrafn to snort with amusement, and grace him with a quick grin. Then his eyes sobered, and he looked away. "I wasn't, though, for years. I learned to weave, and spin, milked cows and made cheese... wore dresses, and carried no weapon."

This was, Sam was pretty sure, a horribly dangerous admission from Hrafn's perspective. The sex was one thing, and it wasn't like Sam had proof they'd done anything at all... but telling Sam that he'd been living a woman's life for a while, that was leaving himself wide open for accusations of... Sam didn't know what... perversion? Effeminacy? Black magic?

Sam carefully reached out, and rubbed his hand down Hrafn's spine. "It's not such a... well, it is a big deal here, and people would look at you strange if you wanted to wear a dress, but I don't hold it against you... you don't, do you?"

"I never wanted it," Hrafn snapped, then looked away. "But I did it. I let a witch break me to heel like a dog, and I took her place in the – she was very old, and sometimes she was asked to participate in rituals – Freyr's sacrifices, or Thor's – that would have been too hard on her old bones, so she sent me to take her place."

Sam rubbed soothing circles on Hrafn's back, though the layer of thick quilt. 'He's talking about sex magic, isn't he?' he asked Gabriel.

'Yeah. He is.'

'How do I convince him I don't think less of him because he did that–'

'Well, it would help if you didn't think less of him, for starters,' Gabriel snapped, feeling sharp and glassy to Sam all of a sudden.

'I don't!'

'You feel disgusted!'

'I'm disgusted that someone used Hrafn worse than a dog, and I'm disgusted that you didn't stop it!'

"I did stop it! As soon as I found him and took control, I stopped it, stopped her, and got back at everyone involved!'

Hrafn made a quiet sound of distress, and shifted away from Sam's hand, which Sam realized he'd clenched in Hrafn's blankets.

"It's not you," Sam said, trying to impress on Hrafn his sincerity. "It's – nobody should have done that to you. And... I... when you killed that cow, you dedicated it to Thor before you killed it, right?"

Hrafn nodded, cautiously

"And after, at the smokehouse, that was for Thor too?"

Hrafn nodded. "Yes. He's a friend to farmers – he can be beseeched during a famine – I thought it could only help, to show him that we do remember his gifts. And I knew you would not hurt me for sport."

Sam sighed. "You could have told me what you were planning."

"The White Christ is so popular here, and he is jealous of his people..."

"Hrafn, I'd much rather know I'm getting involved in sex magic, then find out after the fact. Especially when I though the other person liked me for myself."

Hrafn frowned. "I do like you..."

"Enough to have sex with me? Not for magic, or influence, but just because you like me?"

Hrafn obviously and totally didn't get what Sam was asking, because he repeated, "I do like you."

Sam sighed, and risked pulling Hrafn close for a heartfelt kiss, at least from Sam's side. Hrafn let him do it this time, and pulled back with a confused look on his face.

"You want to fuck me?" Hrafn let the quilt drop from his shoulders, and started on his pajamas, making to strip.

Sam grabbed his arm. "Do you want to? Not for magic, or because you think you should. Do you want to, simply for yourself?" At Hrafn's blank look. "Then no, not really."

"I don't understand what you want, Sam." Hrafn said, as he wrapped himself back in the blanket.

"Yeah, I get that," Sam sighed, and laid down. He let Hrafn snuggle close, resting a shy hand on his back, and draping the blankets over them both. "It's okay. I'll wait until you figure it out."

'That'll take forever, Sam. He hasn't changed much in two millennia.'

'Not asking for your opinion, Gabriel.'

"I will try, Sam," Hrafn said, and closed his eyes. He was asleep in minutes, and Sam followed him after some time in the dark, regretting.

 

The day after they butchered the cow, Mimi had steak for breakfast. Steak, and potatoes, and oddly enough a persimmon – apparently, Deputy Koehler had trees at his house, and the golden-orange fruit took forever to ripen. So instead of eating yet another apple to ward off scurvy, she had the custardy flesh of a fruit that had to get as squishy as a rotten tomato before it was good to eat.

It was wonderful.

She finished up her meal with a slice of rough bread, blotting up the beef grease from her plate – she won't let the fat go to waste, even if she wouldn't have bothered before. Keeping skinny was no longer a concern. In fact, losing weight was now what she worried about. People were starving in town, even though they were in Kansas, in the middle of the best farmland in the country.

"Hey, Mimi," Sam said as he ducked in the door. He looked tired, like he didn't get enough sleep last night.

"Sam," she nodded at him.

"The milking is done – but we're low of fuel for the machine," Sam said as he sliced off a piece of bread, and then scooped out a dab of the rendered beef fat from yesterday in lieu of butter. "Hrafn wants to take another barrel of milo for fuel – he thinks he can get the still working better."

Mimi considered it. She'd have to run the numbers. And talk to Bonnie – the teenager knew more about how much grain they would go through each week, and how much absolutely had to be saved for the spring planting, and how long they could expect winter to actually last.

The winter so far had been bitterly cold, and Mimi had borrowed clothes and taken clothes on charity, even though that grated, just so that she wouldn't freeze in the wind that was fierce and driving the cattle to the farm's limits on hay and pasture.

"Let me check the numbers. I think we can spare quite a bit, as long as it goes to fuel."

Sam barked a laugh. "It's not like I'd want to drink that rotgut we're brewing. It's strictly rocket fuel."

"That bad?" Mimi asked.

Sam shrugged. "It's coming out as high flammable paint stripper, so I guess that works."

Mimi made a face. "Have you seen Bonnie this morning?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Bonnie is... there's a reason I'm glad I'm not a kid anymore..."

"Drama?"

"She and Sean were on the outs over something or other," Sam shrugged, and looked out the window.

"Oh god," Mimi moaned, and rubbed her temples, "teenagers!"

"At least Kat is quiet," Sam offered, smiling cock-eyed as he sipped at the cup of hot tea Mimi shoved at him. Well, 'tea' was probably pushing it – weed based drink mix was more likely.

"I'm sure Kat will find someone to bother with," Mimi grumbled, and wished that she could go back to being a simple revenue agent. Teenagers were just too complicated. Give her a muffed 1040-A form with improper deductions and a small business owner who wanted to fight. It was a lot easier to audit someone's books, than it was to balance three teenagers and all the stupidities life could throw out.

"Hmmm," Sam said.

"I just wish I didn't have to worry about shit like our condom supply on top of the food shortage and all," Mimi groused. It really wasn't fair that she had to think about that. It wasn't like she was having sex, not with Stanley in New Bern helping to build the wind turbines.

Sam blanched. "Condoms last a long time..."

"Not if you're using them!" Mimi snapped.

"Oh... yeah..." Sam said sheepishly, and ran his hand through his hair.

"Sam," Mimi looked at the farmhand with narrowed eyes. He was blushing slightly, and avoiding her eyes. "You have been using–"

"It's not like I can get Hrafn pregnant!" Sam defended.

Mimi rolled her eyes, and hid her face in her hands. "Too much information, Sam."

"You asked, Mimi," Sam said, but he looked away, out through the kitchen windows.

"And I'm regretting it. So very much..."

"Sorry," Sam said, but he didn't look sorry, he looked defensive. He mumbled, "Won't happen again."

Mimi sighed, and gotten up to wash her plate. If there was trouble in paradise, she didn't want to hear it right now. Sam and Hrafn were adults, they could figure out their sex lives on their own, no matter how much fun the gossip around the two of them was.

"Will you be ready for the milk delivery this morning?" she asked. Deciding to ignore Sam's twitchy weirdness and oversharing was probably the way to go, to save her own sanity and to stop her being envious that Sam had his lover with him, even if it seemed they might be going through a rough patch

 

Six years ago, when Kim Gravagna's car broke down just outside of town, Jake was a ne'er-do-well in Jonah's militia, and he and Chris had spent more than a few nights mocking the way Deputy Bill Koehler was walking around in a daze and grinning foolishly even as he stopped them for traffic violations. Falling so fast for a woman who was pregnant before he'd even met her was just the sort of ridiculous thing that Bill deserved to be mocked for, in the collective opinion of the militia.

Today, though, Jake only purred at the soup that Bill's wife had brought over. The deputies and auxiliaries had pooled their rations for mid-shift meals, and thus Jake got to have beef tendon pho for dinner, instead of cold canned yams or something equally hideous.

Not that he was above teasing Bill about the way he accepted his wife's cooking – Vietnamese soup and northern Italian goulashes were completely 'American' as far as Bill was concerned, because his wife made them, even though Bill was the worst homebody Jake had ever met. Bill didn't like anything other than 'meat and potatoes' cooking, never had, but if Kim made it, it was all good. Even if the ingredients were things like galanga, or spicy basil, or tofu.

Even Jimmy would roll his eyes when Bill got going about how he didn't like things that weren't American, and then made exceptions for his wife. But for tonight, a soup of bean sprouts, Chinese-gifted rice noodles, and parts of a cow that usually didn't see the light of day, or at least the inside of a kitchen – it was perfectly fine with Jake.

So he was slurping down noodles and beef tendons when Jimmy walked in with a drawn look on his beefy face.

"What's wrong?" Jake asked, dropping his feet off the chair where he'd perched to eat his dinner.

Jimmy looked like he had horrible news, like he'd been hit by a board.

"One of the Ellises' dairy cows is dead – I just got the news, so I'm going out to take a report."

"What?! That's our milk supply!" Jake said.

"I know, Jake," Jimmy said patiently.

And Jimmy had kids who were still in elementary school, and thus included in the milk ration, so he probably felt it more than Jake did. That didn't stop Jake from ducking into the men's room for a few minutes, just so he could not-cry in privacy. They couldn't lose any more food, not milk, not the rare deer or the more common rabbits, not the air-dropped rice, not even the horrible cornmeal and cracked sorghum.

 

"What's wrong?" Jake asked the minute he came up on the patrol, trailing the two farmhands from the Richmond place. That made everyone who was supposed to be on duty today, so Bill nodded at Jimmy to break the news.

"A cow over at the Ellis dairy was killed," Jimmy said as they all circled up, men and women holding horses or bicycles, or the very fortunate having fueled-up ATVs. Most of them had horses – even Jake was riding one of his mother's horses, and not driving his Roadrunner. The car was too much of a gas-guzzler for patrol, even though it was one of the few working vehicles in town – better to keep it for emergencies, so it was parked behind town hall.

"Are we sure someone slaughtered it – could it have died by accident?" Jake asked.

Bill barked out a bitter laugh. "If only. That would be an easy case."

Jimmy gave him a sideways look, but turned back to Jake and the rest of the Ranger patrol. "It looks like something big did it, not people. Something that could kill a cow, but not something big enough to hide it. We're thinking bear–"

"Bear?!" Jake said. "We're in Kansas."

Bill snapped, "Yeah, and there were idiots running canned hunts from here to Fort Hays, Jake. You'd think they'd just have exotics, like African antelope, but I've seen lions at those places – a bear isn't a stretch at all."

Most of the Rangers grimaced – even the ones Bill suspected would have liked to have had an opportunity to shoot something as big and as dangerous as a lion – or as big and dangerous as worn-out circus lion could be. No one wanted to face a bear.

Jimmy raised his hands in that way he had of calming people down easily. "We're not sure what it was yet – there weren't any clear tracks, but it was big and capable of killing a cow easily. Everybody needs to be careful on patrol, and we need a hunting party to look for it."

"You need hunters..?" the tall guy – Winchester – said. He looked better than he had a month ago, coming into town. Well, the opportunity to wash his clothes and stay in one of the guest rooms at the Richmond place would make any of the road refugees look better.

Jake looked sideways at Winchester and his partner, and Bill frowned. Jake was going to jump in and volunteer the two of them, Bill could tell. There was something about the pair, something that made Bill nervous and uneasy, and not just the fact that they seemed to be gay together, at least from all the gossip. It was the impression he got that Hrafn Friththjófsson was looking through him, that something was looking through Friththjófsson to look at Bill. It was a queasy making feeling, and Bill stroked Slipper's gray nose to reassure himself. The stallion bumped his hand, and then tried to nibble at Bill's hair, which he didn't allow.

"We need to take care of this, before we're down another dairy cow."

Jimmy chimed in with, "If you've got experience, Mr. Winchester...?"

"Jake, Jimmy..." Bill said.

Jake gave him a glare. Bill didn't like the implicit 'shut up' in that look.

Winchester nodded, "I've hunted a lot of things. I'd like to take a look, see if I can help. Hrafn, you game?"

Friththjófsson blinked, and twitched, like he hadn't actually been listening to them, and then said, "Yes, Sam, I'll help catch it. Someone has to make sure you don't die..."

Winchester rolled his eyes, Friththofson smiled at him in a really obvious way, and it was one of the more sickening sweet exchanges Bill had the misfortune to witness, the two farmhands making eyes at each other.

But it was settled, so Jimmy pulled out his map and unfolded it, showing Jake and Winchester and Friththjófsson where he thought the cow-killer – and Bill sincerely hoped it was a bear out of the mountains, instead of something that had escaped from one of the game ranches, because he had no idea what might be running amok with no electricity to keep them in their cages. He patted Slipper's velvet nose, and kept his horse from putting his head on the map as they went over with everyone the search pattern and what to do if they spotted the presumed bear.

 

Hrafn wouldn't have thought a troll could hide in this land of no trees, but hiding it was, and troll it was. The savaged cows were proof enough – it was a troll. Nothing else was big enough to smash cows like a vicious boy killing kittens. Except a draugr, and Hrafn did not want to take on dead men – plus, the local priests of the White Christ were very conscientious about burying people with all the proper rites. Sadly, they could burn no one, what with the lack of wood. Even Sam knew it was better to burn the dead, especially when it looked like they might get up again – and Hrafn wouldn't dismiss the possibility, in this season of disaster.

"For something as big as a bear, it's goddamned hard to find," Jake Green complained as he searched the ground for tracks.

"It's not a bear," Hrafn pointed out. "It's a troll."

"Sure, Hrafn, sure." Jake said, and turned away to peer through the cut stalks.

"Hrafn," Sam said, firm but quiet, "stop saying 'troll'. Civilians–"

"–don't believe," Hrafn finished. "Your people are fools, Sam."

"They're just ignorant. And you're drawing attention to yourself, Hrafn. They already think you're crazy. Stop adding to the impression."

Hrafn wrinkled his nose, but turned back to looking for troll tracks. They were in a field of stover – the cut maize stalks left in the field for cattle to consume in the cold of winter. Bonnie had told him that it wasn't normal to feed cattle stover – normally they had richer feed for the winter than that. But this winter all they had was what was in their fields, which had led to he and Sam haying and ensilaging right up to the first frost, and letting the cattle into the fields to eat the stalks and leaves left from the maize and grain harvests.

The dried husks and stalks rattled in the wind, and obscured Jake, who was only a few yards away. Hrafn could feel him, a warm bright buzz as he and Sam spread out and walked to pace Jake, searching for the troll that had slaughtered three milking cows on this farm.

'Yeah, that went well,' his angel said.

'Shut up, Asvald.'

'You are walking through a corn field with a guy who doesn't believe you when you say it's a troll. This is not a good idea.'

'Shut up, eagle-chieftain.'

'I'm just saying...'

'I have to live with these people. You merely have to watch them.'

'Watch them fuck up. There are some people who really deserve to get their just deserts.'

'I

know

, eagle-chieftain.'

'Adulterers, incompetents, gougers and oath-breakers...'

'I am not tricking anyone for you, even men who deserve it. I want to survive this winter.'

'You're ruining my fun.'

Hrafn rolled his eyes, and tried to ignore his angel. He was having no luck finding the troll tracks, which was ridiculously. It was a cattle-killer, and should be leaving more of a mess.

Sam yelped suddenly, and his shotgun boomed off to Hrafn's side. Hrafn turned, running towards Sam, holding his own weapon crosswise in front of him, the way Sam had drilled him to carry it. Firearms were fearsome weapons, and he didn't want to accidental hurt Sam in his urgency.

"Oh..." Hrafn said. "Sam, that is not a troll."

Sam looked up from where he was crouched over a large and ridiculous bird and glared most amusingly.

"Sam! What– hey, a turkey!" Jake yelped, as he crashed through the maize stalks.

"Yeah, a turkey," Sam said. "I don't think it's our cattle killer, though."

"Meat is meat, Sam," Jake said, and bent to help Sam field-dress the bird. Hrafn stood back – turkeys were larger than the pheasants he knew, and different from geese, so he'd let more expert knife-hands work.

Which of course, was why he was the only one with a gun in his hand when the troll crashed through the dried stalks, drawn by the scent of blood.

It was just typical.

The troll was horrible, tall and piggish and stinking foul. Sam and Jake yelped and dove for their guns, even as Hrafn brought his up to brace against his shoulder and fired directly at the monster's head.

His shot didn't have distance to scatter, but the troll had hide like scale armor and a skull like an iron pot. It bellowed and reared up on its legs, coming off the knuckles it had been dragging on, blotting out the dim winter sun.

"FUCK!" Sam roared, even as he ducked a wild swing of the troll's club-like arm. He couldn't get to his gun, so Hrafn put his cheek down on his gunstock again and pulled his trigger a second time.

The shotgun roared, and this time the shot tore into the beast's chest and throat, spraying blood everywhere as the pellets destroyed its flesh.

The troll fell over backward, stinking and flopping in its death throes.

Hrafn turned to Jake, who was coming off the ground, wide-eyed and startled as anything.

"I told you it was a troll!" Hrafn snapped, pointing to the dying monster.

 

"What the hell happened to you?" Mimi blurted, as Sam staggered through the door. He looked like he'd rolled in a pig sty, covered as he was with muck and straw.

"I got drenched. And then I had to ride home." Sam slid down to sit on the floor in front of the door, and began wrenching off his boots.

"You're filthy!" Mimi said.

"Monster, blood, cow trough. It was fun. Not," Sam snapped, and shed his coat in a wet and dirty clump. He began pulling off his layers of shirts and sweat-shirts, all tangled together from damp.

Mimi stared as Sam stripped off, shirts balled up in a mess before he unbuckled his belt and tried to peel damp jeans down his long legs. Sam, half-dressed and getting even less dressed, was spectacular – even Stanley, with his fresh farm looks and adorable smile, was not in Sam's league.

Of course, the guy with rock hard abs and the shoulders of Hercules and an ass that Mimi could probably have bounced coins off of was gay. Sam had muscles, and height, and brains too – he'd have been a triple threat to any marriage in town if he hadn't come in firmly attached to Hrafn.

Speaking of whom, the shorter farmhand walked in the door, as Sam kept up his impromptu strip act. His face twisted with amusement, and he grinned at Mimi when she looked up to realize he'd caught her ogling his boyfriend.

"What happened, Hrafn?"

"We killed the troll," Hrafn said, strolling in and around Sam to drop an entire turkey onto the table. The coloration and thinness of the bird told Mimi it was a wild one, and she'd wondered how they'd managed to pick up a gamebird during the search for whatever had been killing dairy cows.

"A troll?" Mimi glanced at Sam, who was frowning down at his own clothes resolutely as he tried to shimmy out of his jeans.

"A troll," Sam said. "Or, whatever, you know? It was killing the cows, we found it, we killed it–-"

"How did that lead to you being wet?" Mimi asked.

"I shoved him in a cattle trough," Hrafn said.

Mimi whipped her head around to stare at the other man. "What?!"

"Troll blood is dangerous," Hrafn said, like it was the most normal sentence in the world.

"You didn't have to dunk me!" Sam growled.

"Yes, I did," Hrafn replied. "You and Jake both."

"Jake what?" Mimi asked, thoroughly confused.

"He tossed Jake into the cattle trough, and then dunked me too," Sam frowned at Hrafn with an impressively put-upon expression. "You could have explained. You could have waited."

"Troll blood is dangerous, Sam.

"So is hypothermia!"

"You're fine."

"That's not the point!"

Mimi held up her hands. "Guys! Tell me what happened! Why is Sam soaked?"

Hrafn and Sam looked at each other, frowning.

"We found the troll on the farm, Mimi," Hrafn began.

"Hrafn shot it–"

"There was blood all over Sam and Jake. I washed it off, by force. How was I to know they neither of them pack an extra shirt?"

"You could have asked," Sam grumbled.

"You knew we were hunting troll, Sam," Hrafn said.

Sam rolled his eyes and turned to Mimi. "Anyway, thanks to the job today, my clothes are kind of a mess, and I need to change." He looked down at the bundle he'd accumulated. "I guess I'll have to wash something later... or you will," he said, tossing the wet clothes at Hrafn, who caught them on reflex.

Mimi watched in tongue-tied amazement as Sam walked over to the stairs and up towards his own room. Clothed only in damp white and a few tattoos to boot. Damn, that was a spectacular ass.

Mimi was brought out of it by Hrafn's amused chuckle. He raised an eyebrow at her, knowing and hilariously entertained by what Mimi was sure were flaming cheeks and maybe she'd been much too obvious admiring Sam's ass.

"I can pluck the bird," Hrafn offered, after a moment.

"Oh, right," Mimi said, getting her brain back on track. Just because Sam was amazingly well-built and half naked was no reason to stand around like she'd just lost her entire train of thought. Especially since Sam was pretty much gay, as far as she could tell.

What was someone like Sam doing with a guy who had to be at least ten years older, and a couple of rungs down from him in the looks department? Not that Hrafn was bad-looking, but you had to admit a pointed chin, sharp nose, and expressive brows weren't quite in Sam's "body by Adonis" collection.

Well, there was no accounting for love, in the long run, Mimi thought.

 

Jake was in a firefight again, hot desert smell and guns and garbage and the noise. He wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else.

And suddenly he was, stumbling backwards and cold, so cold.

"Hey there, Ranger," laughed Bill, who he'd fallen on. But it wasn’t Bill, not quite, and Jake was dressed in his grandfather's old uniform (remembered from battered, faded photos) and he was sprawled in a hole while fireworks – shells? – went off above him.

"Where the hell did you come from?" yelled the third guy in the hole with them – Jake was stuck between not Bill and not-Bill – as they all ducked down at the artillery going off overhead.

"Off the beach – look at those Ranger patches, Pen–" not-Bill laughed before he dissolved into white-hot light.

"You're a menace," the white-hot light said, and banked itself.

Jake unfolded from his ball and said, "What?!"

The white-hot light hunkered down, into a more human shape, and glares at Jake. "When someone tells you to avoid the troll blood, avoid the troll blood, Jake."

"It was a gorilla!" Jake yelped. "Bigfoot?"

"It was a troll. And I have to ask myself, what the hell was it doing in Kansas?"

"Eating cows, eagle-chieftain," said a raven, suddenly on the white-hot light's shoulder. The white-hot light was a lot more human all of a sudden, with pale silvery hair and eyes like wells, and a shoulder for a bronze raven to perch on, and flap its mechanical wings.

"I know that, Raven! But you'd think a wendigo..." the light complained, and was gone.

Jake was left staring at the space where light and raven were, and being confronted by a lump of feathers. He looked at it in confusion, not quite sure what it was – a down pillow, maybe?

Until the snaky neck and narrow, furiously glaring head pulled out from under the wing, and the goose lurched to its feet, already hissing, already cackling. It shook out it wings and gabbled at Jake, furious and protective of the egg and the tiny glowing baby bird in its nest.

Jake screamed, and scrambled back, even as dark wings beat at his head and the hard rounded bill snapped out to bite and bite.

"Dude," Jake heard, trapped under a paw, where he was suddenly muffled away from the goose's furious cackling, "even I learned not to piss off the waterfowl. They bite."

"I didn't mean to upset him!"

"He's touchy, you know that," Jake's rescuer said.

Jake risked looking up, over the paw on his chest, and into kind brown eyes.

"Uhm... Sam?"

"Yeah, Jake?"

"Any reason you're a sphinx?"

Sam frowns at Jake, and asks, "I'm a sphinx?! Dude, it's your subconscious!"

"Lion body, eagle's head, wings... that's a sphinx, right?"

"No, that's a griffin." Sam looked over his long, solid body in astonishment. "Jake, wow. Those must be some good drugs you got..."

Jake frowned. He got knocked around some, killing the thing – it was not a troll, for god's sake, no matter what Hrafn claimed. Maybe it had been Bigfoot … and had been eating the Ellises' dairy cows. Kenchy hadn't had anything stronger than some prescription aspirin for him, though, and not much of those. He'd risked a little bit of Oliver Lehrer's pot, though, just to make himself mellow; it wasn't like Bill and Jimmy weren't turning a blind eye to the marijuana as long as most of it went to medicinal uses. Anyway, what could they do, arrest him? That was useless as long as Jericho didn't have a court to try him in.

Obviously, sore muscles, bad knocks, Kenchy's legal drugs and Oliver's illegal drugs were making for one weird dream for Jake tonight.

"Aren't you supposed to be telling riddles?" Jake asked.

Sam – Sphinx? Griffin? Jake always got his mythological monsters mixed up – frowned at Jake, and then began to wash his paw, just like a house cat.

"Otherwise I'm going to go down to that town," Jake could see a town, from the hill – when had he gotten on a hill? – that he stood on. It was a little place, mud brick and plaster.

"Do I need to tell riddles?" Sam asked.

"Hell no, you are one," Jake said..

"Am I?" Sam asked again.

Jake frowned. Sam was just repeating him – so he wasn't surprised when Sam turned into a parrot, a bright and gloriously blue macaw, squawked once, and flew off, against the backdrop of the aviary Jake is suddenly in.

He thought this was the aviary at the San Diego Zoo – the winding path and glass walls were familiar, but he had no idea why he dreamed of it. He'll never see it again. It was gone, like San Diego, like 3 million Americans, like his dreams of flight.

 

Sam woke in the middle of the night to the feel of fingers combing through his hair. He was still dreamy when he nuzzled into the warm body beside him, and threw his arm and leg over his bedmate.

Then he realized that he wasn't dreaming – he was awake, and he'd just pinned Hrafn.

He jerked away, pulling his hands up close to his chest and grimacing in apology.

Hrafn just looked at him, in the pale moonlight that illuminated their bedroom.

"Ah. Sorry...?" Sam said, and tried an apologetic smile.

Hrafn tilted his head, and then lay down, not half reclined the way he typically did, but down flat, with his head beside Sam's so that they could look at each other.

"Sam..." he said, and then frowned. He stroked a thumb over his beard, and smoothed down his mustache.

Sam waited for Hrafn to work out whatever he wanted to say. But he was surprised that instead of saying anything, Hrafn reached out his hand, and laid it against Sam's cheek. The simple warmth of that hand, Hrafn's small, square, callused farmer's hand, against his skin made Sam suck in his breath and close his eyes against the rush of it.

One inhalation, and then Sam could feel the soft warmth of Hrafn's breath against his cheek, and then the soft bristles as Hrafn placed a careful, soft kiss against his lips.

Sam's eyes snapped open, and he looked at Hrafn questioningly.

The other man's tawny eyes were amused, and a little worried, in the pale moonlight. "You said, if I wanted for myself..?" Hrafn prompted.

"So I did..." Sam reached out carefully, putting his hand on Hrafn's shoulder, feeling the weight and breadth of his frame, the sturdy bones and solid muscle.

Hrafn made a pleased noise, and wriggled closer. "I want, Sam. I want for myself."

"Yeah, I get that," Sam laughed and slid his hand over Hrafn's shoulder, until he could wrap it around the other man's back, and pull him in for a kiss. One kiss, which quickly turned into another, and another, each small and shy and exquisite.

Sam broke from the kissing first, to sit up and shuck off his sweatshirt. Hrafn watched him with wide eyes, and ducked his head nervously when Sam tugged him up and encouraged him to take off his top. The flannel pajama shirt was very carefully folded and placed on the bedside table, and then Hrafn rescued Sam's sweatshirt and folded it as well.

Sam recognized an anxious delaying technique when he saw one, and contented himself with watching the flex of Hrafn's back as the other man went through his ritual of folding and neatening. He reached out, and ran his finger down Hrafn's spine, stroking the dots and dashes of blue that traced faintly over the bony knots of Hrafn's back.

Hrafn gasped, and stiffened.

Sam put his hand flat on Hrafn's back, trying for reassuring, trying for harmless. "Hrafn?"

The Norseman shook his head, then turned to Sam and gave him a shaky smile. He looked pale, and his skin felt, not warm and exciting, but cool and unpleasant. He'd gone clammy, Sam realized in alarm.

Sam slid his hands away from Hrafn's back, from the touch that probably felt like a cage, he realized, and down to cup Hrafn's hands. He was careful, just holding, just supporting, not trapping, never making it so Hrafn would feel like he had to fight to get away.

"Hi?" Sam said, and gave a little tug on Hrafn's wrists. 'I hope I'm doing this okay,' Sam thought.

'You're fine, kiddo,' came the response.

Sam twitched. He hadn't expected Gabriel to ... be aware. Not for this. From Hrafn's rueful expression and rolled eyes, the other man had heard that, too.

"Ah. We have an audience..." Sam said.

Hrafn frowned, not at Sam, and set his jaw. "Yes," Hrafn said, as he crawled up the bed, pushing Sam down against the piled pillows. "He'll probably give us points for style," the other man snorted, as he settled himself against Sam, going so far as to throw his leg over Sam's, trapping Sam in the bed.

Sam laughed, and then Hrafn was kissing him, and Sam was kissing back, and they were tangling their fingers together and chuckling. Hrafn's hands were hot against Sam's skin, and he touched Sam with more confidence, fingertips dragging rough and strong over Sam's flesh, instead of maddening tickles.

Sam tried to return the sentiment, if not the gesture; he'd figured out quickly that Hrafn liked soft, careful, open-handed caresses, and would lean trustingly into Sam's hands, as long as Sam didn't close his hands. Fingers spread open, that was what Hrafn liked, what made him lean and push and moan.

'You need to take his pants off,' Gabriel said eventually, when they'd been kissing for what felt like hours but hadn't moved beyond their heavy make-out.

Hrafn huffed, and rolled his eyes, but he pulled back enough to cock his head in question.

"Yeah, sure," Sam said, and pulled his hands away, letting Hrafn reach out and tug his sweatpants down his thighs, letting his cock spring up against the other man's hands. Sam groaned quietly, and wriggled a little. Just the accidental careless brush of Hrafn's hands felt so good against him.

"Uhm," Sam said, when he opened his eyes and unbit his lip. Hrafn was staring at Sam's cock with something like confusion, and something like wonder.

"I hadn't realized..." Hrafn murmured, and passed the back of his hand over Sam's cock.

Sam grunted, and tried not to arch up too much, but it had been weeks, and Hrafn's hand was warm and callused and his skin pulled against Sam's in a way that was entirely too good.

"Get naked," Sam panted. "I want you naked. Now. Please."

'About time,' Gabriel commented. 'Slowpokes, the both of you.'

Hrafn frowned and rolled his eyes, and slipped out of bed. He untied the drawstring and stepped out of his pajama bottoms with a grace and artless confidence that Sam could only envy. The moonlight illuminated the hard muscles of his legs, his thighs, his ass and hip, and the welted scars that wrapped around from his chest.

"What caused this?" Sam asked, and reached out to a scar that seemed out of place, a heavy line – tattooed in yet more blue – that slashed across Hrafn's buttock. It matched none of the heavy, jagged battle scars, being entirely too straight and so oddly placed.

Hrafn stiffened, bolting almost onto his toes.

Sam yanked his hand back. "Hrafn?" he asked, leaning forward and trying to make himself look small.

Hrafn breathed once, twice, a firm deliberate cadence. He turned around, dropping his folded pajamas on the bedside table with the rest. His body looked silvery in the moonlight, and his torso was sprinkled with dark and light hairs, from his chest down to his groin. His cock was like Sam remembered, foreskin dark over a swollen, curved dick that was heavy and purple with veins.

"It was from a shame-stroke," Hrafn said, and swallowed loudly. "It's nothing. Now it's nothing," he said, and climbed back under the blankets, back against Sam.

Sam made a soft noise of agreement, and gripped Hrafn around his waist, lifting him gently, carefully, until he was straddling Sam's thighs and their cocks were brushing against each other.

"This good?" Sam asked, and tried to tuck the blanket closer around Hrafn, trapping heat between them.

Hrafn grunted in affirmation, and leaned his weight on Sam's chest, pushing Sam back against the pillows in another kiss. Sam laughed against his lips, and opened to Hrafn, inviting him into his mouth.

'About time. You two are idiots.'

Hrafn pulled back and ducked his face against Sam's neck. He muttered in irritation, and his beard prickled Sam's skin.

Sam patted Hrafn's shoulder, and tried running his fingers up through Hrafn's hair. It was still tied back in the heavy bristling plait the Norseman wore it in, and he wondered what it would look like unwound – with all the weight of it now, would it flatten from the crisp waves Gabriel had affected when he controlled the body?

"No comments from the peanut gallery, Gabriel," Sam said.

'You never let me have any fun.'

"Well, you're the one kicking back and watching like a voyeur."

Gabriel didn't respond, and after a few moments, Sam shifted, and nudged Hrafn to look up at him again. "Can you believe him? We do all the work and he–"

Hrafn jerked suddenly, and his hand pinched at Sam, hard as vices as he arched his back and moaned in an entirely unexpected – and unpleasant – way.

Sam hissed, and tried to shove Hrafn off him, to lay him down on the bed as he shuddered, but the other man was rigid and unyielding.

And then there was light, bright and so sharp that Sam's eyes watered.

He came back to himself to find Hrafn tucked up under his chin, with softly glowing limbs – wings – cascading down from the other man's back.

One wing half-unfurled itself, until the midway joint came forward to brush against Sam's cheek. The wing was feathered like a bird, and yet there were two ... fingers, and a thumb, scaly, clawed, and distinctly unhuman, there at the joint. Those alien digits lay themselves against Sam's skin, and petted gently.

'Hi...'

"Gabriel..?" Sam gasped.

Hrafn tilted his head up enough to catch Sam's eye, and nodded. "Such a brat..." the Norseman murmured, and tucked himself back against Sam. His tongue sneaked out, to lick Sam's throat, and that combined with Gabriel's... hand, for lack of a better term ... petting him, made Sam's whole body clench.

'This is going to be so much fun!' Gabriel chortled, the wings rippling like light under water, and Hrafn snorted again.

Sam was kind of afraid of that.

 

Part Three: the twigs and briars

Jake had been planning on spending Christmas on patrol, saving the day off for men and women with families to tend, but the Rangers took it upon themselves to reschedule him for a half-day off too. Which was why he was riding one of his mother's horses to the farm for Christmas dinner with his parents and Bonnie and Mimi, and Bonnie's boyfriend Sean and the farmhands.

Kat Brubaker's little sister was riding a borrowed pony beside him, snug and warm in a new coat that 'Sam and Hrafn gave me!' Jake had taken one look at that coat, and thought it looked suspiciously like someone had skinned and tanned a collie or two. Actually, considering Hrafn's utter pragmatism, the chance of that being the truth was disturbingly high. The man sometimes seemed dropped right off the moon for how little he cared for what people thought of him, and how oblivious he was to rules of behavior like: "don't make dogs into coats".

"Jake, honey, what is that?" Mom asked.

Dad urged his horse forward – still not the best of rider's, but good enough for what was effectively an easy trail ride from town to the farm. "What the hell?"

Jake looked at the electrical tower that sat just before the turnoff up Stanley's drive. Suspended from the trellised structure, hanging high enough that someone had to have climbed to reach them, were an eerie collection of bones and bottles, strung up like windchimes and weathervanes. There were lots of little skulls – rabbits and squirrel and odd translucent ones that he looked at in confusion before realizing they were duck and other birds – a few large ones, mostly cattle skulls, obvious and easily identifiable, or deer, but one that was weird, long and almost doglike with big sharp eyeteeth that Jake finally figured was a hog skull There were rib bones hanging in graceful arcs, and cut-off hooves positioned so they'd click against each other in the wind. And there were horse skulls in a wheel right in the middle – four of them, daubed with red and pointed outward.

"I don't have any idea," Jake said, "Let's keep going." Someone at the house knew what it was – someone at the house had to know what it was, because Bonnie and Mimi delivered milk to the grade school every day. No way could they miss that collection of weirdness being assembled.

"It's hunting magic," Jenny Brubaker said, as Jake hustled her past the grotesquerie. "Hrafn told me about it."

"What, honey?" his Mom asked.

"Hrafn told me – he said he was putting up a place for dead animals, so they wouldn't scare the live ones away," she frowned. "I didn't think it made a lot of sense, but Hrafn's a good hunter, so I guess he knows what he's doing."

Jake shared a glance and a grimace with his mother, and really hoped the kid had garbled Hrafn's explanation, because as good a farmhand and a hunter as the man was, it was looking more and more like he was also crazy as a loon. First his 'angel', now 'hunting magic' – Jake was going to have to ask Sam again what meds Hrafn used to take, in the hopes of scrounging up whatever anti-psychotics he needed. Of course, he was going to have to get past Sam's bad habit of ignoring reality in favor of his rosy-eyed glasses view of the world. And convincing Sam that his boyfriend was really out of touch enough to need help was going to be hard, because Hrafn did seem to be functional, at least with Sam's help.

 

"We hanged men from trees too," Hrafn said as he watched Mrs. Green trimming the tree with the kids. He seemed fascinated with the little Santa figures that Jenny was putting on the artificial fir that they'd dragged out of the attic, and less interested in the ball ornaments and tinsel..

'Does he mean–' Sam asked Gabriel.

'-sacrifice to Odin? Oh yeah. Though Hrafn's clan still held Tyr as their patron.'

"Don't mention that to the Greens," Sam told Hrafn.

Hrafn rolled his eyes, but patted Sam on the shoulder as he went into the kitchen with help Mimi with the venison roast. Sam sighed and smiled awkwardly when Mrs. Green looked up at him. He didn't think she approved of him or maybe it was him and Hrafn being together. Sleeping with a guy was presenting all new sorts of social roadblocks. No longer did people dismiss him as a drifter and a possible criminal; no, now some people acted like he was a threat to their kids. He was sleeping with an adult, and he had more than one person point him out as a person who shouldn't be around Bonnie or Kat. But not Sean, somehow, even though Sean was the boy and the entire town seemed to think he was gay, instead of bi (Sam reluctantly admitted 'bi' was the word – he enjoyed being with Hrafn, but he still liked women, with curves and dark hair and the soft squishiness of tits, even if he didn't pursue any of the single women his age in town).

And the gossip he'd overheard was just plain insulting – it would have been one thing if people had caught Hrafn as he carved and painted runes over ever bit of Jericho he could manage (Sam had nipped the idea of painting swastikas all over pretty fast – Thor's Hammer and the Helm of Awe were so much less recognizable and with much less bad history), but Hrafn had a knack for not doing it when people could catch him at it.

 

Dinner had gone well enough, early enough that the Greens would get back into town before it got so dark that no one could find their way, with Sam only occasionally wanting to stab himself with a fork when the conversation had gotten awkward between the Greens, or Sean and Bonnie had launched an ill-considered round of 'best holiday memories' which had ended with Jenny and Kat sniffling in the kitchen. At least Hrafn had the sense to edit his recollections to sound less insane, although Sam had 'heard' Gabriel helping to re-context them on the fly. He didn't like the way Mr. and Mrs. Green had given him a pitying look when Hrafn had mentioned his wife, or Mimi's narrowed eyes. At least Mimi had the grace to look a bit shame-faced when Hrafn had gone on to say that his family was dead. The Greens had just changed to looking at Sam like he was taking advantage of Hrafn's widowed state and presumed emotional vulnerability. As if – Hrafn was as tough as nails, and nearly as manipulative as Gabriel when he put the effort into it – Sam could believe he'd been a leader of men, once. Now, of course, he was an acolyte of a religion that was barely remembered and badly reconstructed by people who read the Eddas and thought the Aesir were talking to them. Sam thought the Aesir were probably like most of the pagan gods he had met – hungry for worship, but not at all safe to get near.

 

After the meal, while the games of cards and dice were starting up, Hrafn took Gail Green out to check the horses – to check Zap, who was hers but was on rented pasturing. The mare was not recovering well, even with the care Hrafn took with her. She had gone spavined; he thought it was the weakness of her joints that made the mare unfit for any work but growing fat for the knife. Gail disagreed, to the point of glaring at Hrafn when he suggested slaughtering the mare before the year turned. Gail was tender-hearted, and impractical, so he promised to care for the mare another full month. But he wrangled out the provision that if she did not improve, he could exchange ownership of Jarpstjarni for Zap, and do what he must. He would hate to lose the gelding, who was strong and young and with much better legs, but Hrafn had plans for Zap, with her lightning-bolt blaze and her valiant heart. He could not find a white stallion, but a mare marked with Thor's own fire would be good enough...

 

"What are you doing?" Sam said, as Hrafn tossed another clothespin Santa into the fire. Jenny had given that to him, before she'd left for the night. It wasn't right to destroy the kid's gift – she might not have any real idea of just what Hrafn believed, but she'd meant to make him happy with the silly toy she'd made.

"A gift for Thor," Hrafn said, smiled and tossed another little figurine to a fiery death. He seemed satisfied at that, since he stopped burning Santa in effigy.

Sam grimaced.

'Seriously, if Thor doesn't show up after all the prayers and blood Hrafn's directed at him, I'm going to have to track the Big Guy down myself and give him a whatfor,' Gabriel said. 'Maybe I'll trick him into wearing a dress again...'

Sam frowned. 'I remember that story. You disguised yourself as a maidservant then – didn't you wear a dress too?'

'I'll have you know I rocked that dress. Because I'm awesome.'

'And can shapeshift,' Sam pointed out.

'Well, that helped too, sure...'

 

Jake was a little surprised at the paper lanterns hanging from gym's walls, but really, what kind of decorations could they put up without electric lights? Not that they were celebrating anything, other than another month of survival – mid-January means they've made it four months since the bombs fell. At this point, any excuse to get out of their houses and socialize was welcomed by the town, because with no television, no radio, and half the books in the library ruined by fire, people were bored. Getting together to listen to music and dance was at least something different.

Bill was, for once, out of his uniform, over at the table holding punch – what were they using for punch, there wasn't a speck of fruit juice or kool-aid left in town – with his wife.

Jake didn't feel comfortable walking over. He really didn't know Kim at all, being on rather the wrong side of things when she'd arrived in Jericho all those years ago. What he did know, he'd gleaned from his parents, his brother, and Jimmy's occasional mention of the woman. And Bill's occasional cheerful burble about her, which were one of the few times the sharp-tongued deputy wasn't caustic and argumentative.

Kim Gravagna Koehler was half Vietnamese, half Italian-American, the result of a sailor meeting a shopgirl and falling instantly in love. She worked in the small state government office in Jericho, managing the paperwork of half a dozen branch offices for departments as different as agricultural extension and health and human services, all of which were flailing without orders now. Jake didn't even know if Kim was still getting paid – his dad had finally kludged something with Sparky Dumont, the town's banker, for a local scrip until the town's isolation ended, to pay the teachers, firefighters, garbage men, and sheriff's deputies, but the state government agents might have been left in the wind.

But she and Bill had their heads together, looking as cute as a pair of puppies. If Jake hadn't grown up with Bill and didn't know him, he might have thought they looked sweet. But he had grown up with him, and Bill was a weasel – short and cute at first glance, but as mean as a snake and sneaky about it.

Jake spent a good ten minutes watching the crowd filtering in, and glancing over at the Koehlers bemusedly. Eventually, Mimi came in, obviously chaperoning Bonnie and Sean, and the refugee girl Kat. Sam and Hrafn followed her, like a pair of mismatched guard dogs.

"So... polka..." Mimi said, after she got herself a drink.

"Yeah," Jake sighed. "Hey, do you know how to dance?"

"Dance, yes. Polka... not so much."

"It's not hard. It's just dancing."

"It's polka."

It was music that the band knew how to play, even without sheet music. And that didn't require amps or other stage equipment they had no electricity for. What more could you ask to bring the town together..?

Mimi didn't look impressed with that line of reasoning – polka not having been a fashionable dance in Washington DC. It hadn't been really popular in San Diego, either, though Freddy had dragged Jake to hear more than one conjunto band which had been pretty close, all things considered.

The first song started up, and suddenly Jake was bereft as Mimi strode off to supervise Sean and Bonnie.

"No dance partner?" Sam asked, suddenly looming beside Jake in the dim light. The tall man quirked a smile, and nodded out the whirling crowd.

"No, no dance partner," Jake said. He looked sideways at Sam, and asked, "You're not dancing?"

"Not unless someone asks," Sam said, and looked put upon. Given that Hrafn had wandered away toward the stage, Jake thought he understood. Dancing in public with your boyfriend in a small town like Jericho, that could be... fraught. If the two of them were cautious, Jake couldn't blame them. Jerichoans could be horrible gossips, and had a habit of closing ranks against you when you did something they thought was scandalous.

Being the former mayor's prodigal son was still probably easier than being a gay farmhand, even if Sam did have a boyfriend to rely on.

Sam coughed suddenly, which made Jake look up.

"Ugh, I don't need to see that," Jake griped.

Sam laughed. "Hey, your parents are still in love. It's kind of sweet."

Jake admitted it might be, if you weren't their son, and they weren't nuzzling each other through a slow dance.

 

Hrafn listened to the music, which was bouncy and cheerful and should have set his feet to flying, and wondered if he could get a look at the instruments later. The squeezebox especially was intriguing.

'You want to take it apart?' his angel asked.

'I want to know how it's made. It looks... complicated.'

'Huh. There's probably a book around somewhere. I don't know'

Hrafn shrugged, and stepped back to lean against the wall. The music was incredibly cheerful, and he wondered if he could risk trying to dance to it. Not their dancing, but his own. He didn't know the complicated back and forth steps, and wasn't sure he wanted to attempt them anyway, not without practice.

He opened his eyes again, and looked for Bonnie. She was still dancing with that disreputable boy. She could do so much better, though he supposed the boy was handsome enough. Not good enough for Bonnie, with her inheritance of the Richmond farm, but certainly handsome enough.

'Cute kids. They could make themselves happy in the long run.' Gabriel remarked.

'I suppose, if they grow together well. But will they? That sort of thing takes effort, and they are very young as these people reckon things...'

'I don't know. They don't have Enochian marks, if that's what you're asking,' Gabriel said.

'I wasn't, but I am glad to know that. Your kind does no favors to burn my kind with your runes.'

'It's Enochian matchmaking, Hrafn. It's what Cupids are for.'

Hrafn frowned at turned away the dancers and their cheerfulness. 'To make us ache for what we cannot have?'

'You bleed and you mourn, Hrafn, because you and Aud were meant to be together, and you were together. Why can't you just remember the good?'

'Why can't you just remember the good, eagle-chieftain. You mourn as well – you mourn your brothers, even as they kill you.'

'Bastard.'

'My parents were married, and you know it, Asvald. I am no-one's left-hand child.'

Gabriel didn't respond at that, and Hrafn stalked away from the dancing and the music and the cheer out into the cold night, to give himself time to cool his temper in the frozen air.

He looked up, into the brilliant night with Odin's Wain, and Thjazi's Eyes and all the familiar stars – and unfamiliar ones, shooting down across the skies.

'...no...' Gabriel trembled, feeling sickly-foul and grey in the back of his throat.

'What is it?'

'The stars... they're Falling. My brothers are falling'

 

"Mimi, have you seen Hrafn?" Sam asked, suddenly by her elbow. For a guy as tall as he was, as handsome as he was, Sam was startling unobtrusive when he wanted to be.

"He was," Mimi gestured towards the stage, "looking at the band, last I saw him."

"Damnit," Sam said, frowning. "How can one guy disappear so fast? This is a gym – it's not like it's even big."

"Maybe he wandered into the school," Mimi said. "Or... did you look outside? I know somebody spiked the punch. Maybe he went out to clear his head?"

Sam frowned at that, then frowned at the door they'd come in. His nose wrinkled, and he looked back at her, "Yeah, I'll look outside."

Mimi blinked as he rushed off, and then found Bonnie in the crowd. The teenager signed "What's with Sam?" at her.

Mimi frowned, and signed back, "Hrafn sick? I go check." At least, she was pretty sure that was what she'd signed. Her ASL was still shaky, and she might not have been clear in the uncertain lamplight. But Bonnie nodded and stayed put, so Mimi thought she had done okay.

Plowing through the gym doors, and out into the school's front yard, Mimi couldn't see anything for a moment, and then she caught sight of Sam, crouched down into front of a low cement wall. He was talking softly, almost nonsense words for all Mimi could make them out, and it took a moment for her to realize he was hunkered down in front of Hrafn, who was sitting on the wall and staring up at the sky.

"Hrafn, come on," Sam was saying, "it's all right. It's all right, Hrafn."

"They're falling, Sam. So many of them are falling," Hrafn muttered, his eyes fixed on the night sky, even though he was shiny-eyed with messy tears.

Mimi glanced up at the sky, at the huge wheeling stars above her, and the bright moon like a beacon, even it's dark half visible in the clear dark sky. She had never seen so many stars, and the sky behind them inky black – in DC, the night sky had had a bronze film on it, and the only constellation she could reliable see had been Orion. Here, Orion was huge, all the stars of his belt and shoulder, even his arms and legs, clearly visible without the pollution of steady streetlights. There were stars and constellations aplenty, and she didn't know more than a handful.

"Oh," Mimi said, as a light streaked across the night, "shooting stars. How pretty."

"Angels," Hrafn said in a strangled voice, "falling angels."

"You don't know that," Sam said, his hands on Hrafn's shoulders. "It's an asteroid shower. Probably."

"A war in Heaven," Hrafn muttered, and hugged himself as he tracked yet another shooting star across the sky.

"Hrafn," Sam said, and then glanced at Mimi.

She gave him a worried frown, and tried to soften it into a smile when he pursed his lips. She jerked her chin, back towards the school.

Sam followed her the few yards away, watching worried at Hrafn clutched at himself and shivered.

"Sam, is he having –" Mimi stopped herself, not sure of how to say it without sounding like a complete uncharitable ass, "– is he having an... attack?"

"He's not crazy, Mimi," Sam said.

Mimi sighed, and soothed, "But he's having a bad spell, right?" When Sam looked away, she continued. "Look, Sam. I know how it is. I had friends back in DC, wonderful people, as long as they had their meds. And I know you can't get whatever Hrafn was taking. I know that. And he'd okay, most of the time. But something set him off, didn't it?"

Sam glanced up at the sky, a worried look that spoke volumes.

"I'm sorry, this was a bad idea. I can find the kinds and we can go–"

"No!" Sam said, "No. I mean, Bonnie and Kat, and Sean–"

"Sam, since you need to get Hrafn out of here–"

"I will!" Sam flinched at how loud he'd gotten, and continued on quieter, "I will. I can take him home. We rode in, we can ride out. I can pony his horse off Socks, and you can stay with the kids."

Mimi looked at Sam, and felt sorry for putting him on the spot. "You think he'll be better if you take him home alone?"

Sam winced, but nodded.

"I feel like a heel not helping you–-"

"It'll be better if it's just me, Mimi," Sam said.

"Okay."

"And I don't want to ruin the kids' night out."

Mimi sighed, then nodded. "Okay, Sam. Do you need help getting him on his horse?"

Sam looked over to the athletic field, which had been turned into a horse corral weeks ago. "No. No, I'll be fine. Hrafn can ride in his sleep. It'll be good."

Mimi was dubious, but Sam was able to walk over to Hrafn and get the man moving with a few more words and arms slung around his shoulders as he continued to weep. They made it to the horses, Sam helped his lover mount, and then Mimi was watching them trot off into the night.

She waited until they were out of sight, beyond the weak torches around the school, before she went back inside to chaperone her three teenagers. Missing Stanley was hard, but she was suddenly glad that she had a man who was absent but healthy, instead of a man who was present yet not really.

 

Hrafn stopped weeping sometime on the ride home. Sam had taken the reins, and lead his horse – fortunately, Fifalla and Socks were both sensible mares, and would let him pony one off the other. If either of them had been riding other mounts it might not have worked – Kolfaxi, for one, would have pitched a fit, spooky as the gelding was.

They got to the farm, dismounted, and tended to the horses. It was a good thing that Hrafn could do it on autopilot, because even in the moonlight, Sam could see how much he wasn't there tonight.

Hrafn drifted back to the house after the horses were put up for the night, and up the stairs after checking the fireplace. Sam found him in their bedroom, desultorily kicking off his boots in the light of candle stub.

"Hey," Sam said. "You all right now?"

Hrafn looked up with red hollow eyes and shook his head.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

The other man took a long low breath, and then scrubbed his face. He looked ... embarrassed. "The stars were coming down."

"It could have been meteors...: Sam said.

Hrafn gave him a dubious and insulted look.

"Okay, yeah, I know it's unlikely, but I had to–"

"Gabriel felt them going out. Puff," Hrafn said, miming blowing out a candle, "and out. There is war in Heaven, Sam."

Sam sat down on the bed beside him, and laid his hand on Hrafn's shoulder. "I can't do anything about that. You can't do anything, to hurry it or help–"

"We kill no more brothers," Hrafn snapped, suddenly fierce and bristling.

"Yeah, sure, no more brothers. Not yours, and not mine," Sam said, thinking of Adam and Bobby, both lost in Sioux Falls, and Dean, who he'd lost the moment they'd committed to the idea of opening the Cage to shove Lucifer back in. It had just taken rising out of the Pit to for Sam for acknowledge that fact – and it didn't keep him from aching for Dean like he'd ache for a missing limb.

"Not his," Hrafn hissed. "My eagle-chieftain kills no more brothers, forever."

Sam nodded at Hrafn's fierceness. He didn't know what had happened back at the Elysium Fields Hotel after they'd run from Lucifer, but if Gabriel had actually tried to kill his brother – well, Sam hadn't ever wanted to kill Dean, not really, and the idea of being forced to pick up a weapon for people he didn't like much, just because it was the right thing to do, was still horrible even though they had succeed in following Gabriel's plan to stuff Lucifer back into Hell. If Gabriel was still twitchy about the whole Apocalypse, didn't he have the right?

Gabriel, for all his bile and trickery, hadn't wanted to kill his brother. He'd died before he'd done it, and Sam wasn't even sure that he'd actually made an attempt at killing the Devil, instead of trying to talk him down. But for all that Gabriel had done and not done, he hadn't wanted his family to be hurt again. And now more of them were falling from Heaven.

"Yeah, I understand. I'm sorry, Gabriel," Sam said, as he pulled the covers back and then over Hrafn, trapping the smaller man between Sam's heavy weight in the bed and Gabriel's insane bravado and doomed, hard-won bravery.

Hrafn's eyes flickered with bright gold for a moment, and then faded. He sighed, and snuggled up against Sam, warm and even pliable, under his borrowed winter clothes.

 

Sam wasn't even surprised by the dream, because where else do you find a being without a body of his own, except in a place where figments were as solid at truth, and truth dissolved like glass?

"Where is this?" Sam asked, when he found himself on a tall hill, looking out over endless fields with sparse trees, and a river with a waterfall, rumbling with mist.

"The House of Four Windows," Hrafn said, and Sam turned to look at the man beside him. He looked... alien, dressed in cloak and tunic, with boots tied up to his knees, and his hair not braided, but pinned back with carved antler combs.

"The House of Four Windows?" Sam asked.

"So that he could see his enemies approaching, and before, so that Sigyn could always have a way to flee on her own if life turned against them," Hrafn explained. He stroked the coils in his lap, that twisted and shivered and positively radiated grief.

Sam looked past Hrafn and... Gabriel, such as he was, and watched the people that populated this dream – or memory, Sam was pretty sure it was a memory, with people wandering by and taking no notice of either he or Hrafn, and certainly no notice of the pile of archangel curled in Hrafn's lap.

Women began appearing, working between the house and outbuildings, carrying basket of loaves, or spinning, or any manner of farm work that a women would be expected to carry out on their own. There were kids with them – little ones, and some older, teenager-ish, if gods aged like humans.

Sam watched the people, and felt Gabriel tense and flare at some them – bad memories, or bad memories. The twin boys with dark hair made him tense, and the dark-skinned young man made Gabriel sigh, and there was nothing but regret for the black-haired woman who was undeniably plain but who Gabriel tracked whenever she walked past, but Gabriel didn't respond to anyone else. Sam waited, leaning back against the stone wall with Hrafn, watching people wander through this dream

The world blinked white and howled, just for a moment.

Sam came to lying on a hard, hot surface. He rolled, and found himself on the hood of a car. Not just any car, but the Impala.

"Dean..." he gasped, and scrambled off, looking around for his brother. The car was parked by a lake, in the reeds, and there was a wooden dock out over the water. A man sat in a lawn chair, cast a fishing rod into the depths.

"Dean!" Sam said, and loped up onto the dock.

Dean turned to look at him as his feet made the boards rattle. Dean looked... good. Like himself, much better than he had looked in Detroit. He looked whole and entire, and a lot less stressed, out in the sun, fishing on a lake in a dream. Except that he was wearing –

"Dude, are you wearing fatigues?" Sam asked.

"Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniform," Dean replied without opening his eyes.

"What?" Sam barked, and started laughing. He couldn't help it. The idea of Dean as a Marine was just too funny – had Gabriel thrown him into a daydream instead of a memory?

Dean opened his eyes and glared sideways at Sam. "I'm going to ignore that, because you're a figment of my imagination."

"Oh, I am so not. You're a figment of mine."

"The real Sam is in Hell. You're just a dream," Dean snapped with a glare and went back to fishing, pointedly closing his eyes and leaning back in the lawn chair.

Sam blinked and scratched his head. "Uhm, no."

That made Dean open his eyes again, but he was glaring at Sam with about as much friendliness as a rattlesnake.

"I'm not in Hell. I'm in Kansas."

"Kansas..." Dean said flatly. "You are not in Kansas."

"Uhm, pretty sure I am. Jericho, Kansas. It's not bad... well, there's plenty to eat, if you can stomach corn meal every day." Sam looked thoughtful. "I worry about vitamin deficiencies, actually. We have no idea what we're doing, and we'll probably all have scurvy and pellagra by the time crops are growing again."

"God, you really sound like Sam."

Sam rolled his eyes. "I am Sam, Dean."

"This is nice. Didn't think El Deano had it in him." Sam turned to stare, because that hadn't been Hrafn, that had been Gabriel – the accent, the snark, the insult.

And it was still Gabriel, not shimmering, not coils, but human-shaped, with wavy hair, green jacket, and attitude. And a hand pressed over his belly, with black scorch marks on his shirt and an eldritch glow coming through his fingers.

"Damn," Dean said. "You're not something I wanted to see, even in a dream."

"Aw, I'm hurt, Dean, really I am."

Dean bristled, and Gabriel smirked, and they both inhaled like they were going to start laying into each other. Which was the moment that Hrafn came up behind Gabriel and shoved him sideways off the dock and into the water.

Dean grinned, and looked at Hrafn in shock. "Dude! That was awesome."

Hrafn went to the dock's edge and peered curiously into the water. He looked concerned for a moment, then he grinned and yelled, "You deserve it, angel!"

"Dude," Sam said, "That's just not right..."

"Yeah, it wasn't," Gabriel said, suddenly stepping around Sam, and knocking Hrafn off the dock in turn. Except that Hrafn didn't fall into the water, he turned into a raven and glided through the air, circling around to land on Sam's shoulder.

Gabriel, who was now dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and swim trunks, made a swipe at the bird, just as Hrafn cackled and leapt off Sam. Which resulted in Gabriel swiping Sam, knocking him off his feet, and falling over himself.

"Ow," Sam said, and grabbed at Gabriel's hands as the archangel tried to climb off him but just succeeded in kneeing Sam in a series of unfortunate places. "Quit it! Gabriel, stop struggling. You're kneed me in the balls, you ass!"

"Asvald, stop this. You're better than this," Hrafn said, coming up behind them, not a bird anymore. He pulled Gabriel off Sam, and sat, pulling the angel until they were sitting together against a pillar a few feet from Sam. Hrafn tilted his head in apology to Sam, and wrapped Gabriel in his feathered cloak. The angel resisted curling up, his eyes hot and angry before he choked off a sob and melted into his Vessel's embrace.

"What the fuck?" Dean muttered, even though he walked over and helped Sam sit up, before plopping himself down on one of the pillars. "I mean, just...what the fuck?"

"Dean, Hrafn Friththjófsson. Hrafn, this is my brother Dean," Sam introduced them, and then added, "Dean thinks we're figments of his imagination –"

"I'm not so sure about that now. I mean, why the fuck would I be imaging God's douche-iest angel?" Dean interrupted.

Hrafn's brows rose, and then he frowned at Dean.

Sam was tempted to shove Dean off the pier. Instead, he asked, "Have you heard from Cas?"

"No? He said he was going back to Heaven. Going to clean it up, be the new Sheriff in town."

"That idiot," Gabriel growled, where he was still cuddled in Hrafn's arms. "That ever-loving idiot. That was your influence, wasn't it? You stupid, stupid –"

"Asvald," Hrafn said quietly, and put his hand on the back of Gabriel's head.

The archangel looked at the man, and then ducked his head, burrowing back into Hrafn's embrace. He said softly, "My brothers are killing each other again, and this idiot is proud he helped."

"You cannot stop them, eagle-chieftain. Not now. You do not have wings to fly."

"I could use yours..."

Dean nudged Sam, and staged-whispered, "They're dicking each other, aren't they?"

Sam rolled his eyes, and said, "God, I hope none of us remembers this dream."

Which was when he awoke with a gasp. "Damnit," he muttered. "I remember." He turned to his side, but Hrafn was still asleep beside him. When Sam put a hand on his bedmate to check, he could feel the buzz of Hrafn's self, and the lower, slower, bone-shaking thrum that he was sure was Gabriel. They were both asleep. Or unconscious. Whatever. Sam wasn't, and he desperately wanted to be, so he lay back down. Pulling the blankets up over himself, he folded himself around Hrafn until he could feel the other man's slow breathing tickling his scalp.

Wrapped around his lover, and his lover's angel, he tried to sleep.

 

"What the hell are you doing?" Bill asked.

Hrafn Friththjófsson looked up from the marks he'd been smearing on the eagle statute in front of city hall. Bill had caught him at it as he came in for the early shift on the late January morning – Friththjófsson was almost certainly in town to deliver milk to the elementary school

"I'm putting up protection...?" he said, as if he didn't have red smears on his fingers.

"You're throwing paint on the statue!" Bill said. Then the smell registered, and he glared at the open mason jar in Friththjófsson's hand. It smelled coppery and sharp, like the blood that occasionally showed up at the general store home-canned during slaughtering – people bought it for the protein, to add to the rice from China if they had no other meat. "Is that blood?!"

"Blood works best."

"What the hell!" Bill yelled. "You can't just paint blood on public property!"

"I don't see why not..?"

"Would you get out of here!" Bill yelled. "I don't want to arrest you, because the paperwork would be too weird!"

Friththjófsson smirked, "You're just upset that I'm doing something you hadn't thought of."

Bill stared at the farmhand. "You are looney-toons."

Friththjófsson just smiled sweetly and screwed his jar of blood shut before sauntering off towards the school, where presumably his partner was actually delivering the day's milk from the Richmond farm.

Bill watched him go, and then turned to look at the mess he'd made of the eagle statue – there were angular lines finger-painted all around the base, all diamonds and triangles and arrows.

"Bind-runes," Bill murmured softly, and then looked confused. Where had that come from? But the shapes, for all their gore, he didn't try to rub out, nor did he fetch some hot water to scrub them off the stone base. They were mostly hidden by the shrubbery, and it would just take too much effort for something you couldn't really see.

And the idea of obliterating the marks, when Bill forced himself to think about doing it, just felt wrong.

So he went inside, and forgot about removing them. No one else even mentioned the marks all day, and by the time his shift was over, Bill had forgotten them entirely.

 

Sam had worked himself into exhaustion again – early spring was pretty busy on a farm, as it turned out, especially when there wasn't enough fuel to run all of the machines, and some of the work had to be done by hand. So he collapsed into bed and just curled up against Hrafn's side.

The dream started pretty innocently.

Hrafn was a clockwork raven, Sam could see, like the most exquisite toy imaginable. All brass and pulleys and wings – feathers! – like ten-foot razors.

This was certainly one of the weirder dreams Sam had had. Sitting in a tree – 'a great ash tree' supplied a helpful voice that sounded a lot like Gabriel – in a giant nest, with a bird that was a manifestation of his dream-image of his constant companion. Except that Sam didn't exactly like the tree, or the weather, or the fact that he too seemed to be turning into a bird.

His fingers were melting away and being replaced from somewhere. Still, he was pretty calm about that, until Hrafn in his dream turned, raven-like, and started to peck out his eyeballs.

That's when he woke up, with a horrible gasp and a deep desire to be the only one in bed. He almost shoved Hrafn off, but the other man was obviously commingled with Sam, in more ways than one.

The Norseman shifted, and threw a leg over Sam's. Because of the thin fabric of his pajamas, Sam could feel the warm heavy softness of Hrafn's dick, not yet aroused to use, but temping in the potential.

"Hey," Sam said.

Hrafn's eyes slit open, and he peered at Sam with narrowed eyes.

"Hi?"

Hrafn's mouth quirked into a smile. "Hello, Sam. Something you wanted?"

Sam frowned, then gave Hrafn a hopeful smile, which made the Norseman chuckle and pull Sam over with a hand buried in his hair for a kiss, and then another.

It wound up a very nice night.

 

 

Sam made Hrafn sit down the night after they'd plowed up the field for the spring sowing of the hardy vegetables – broccoli, cabbage and the like. He was exhausted, sitting cross-legged on the bed while Sam rummaged in the bedside drawers. Then the tall man sat down beside him and stretched out a hand as Hrafn watched.

He tugged at the stubby braided tail of Hrafn's hair, and pulled of the clips that kept it secure.

Hrafn sucked in a breath, all of a sudden very tense.

But Sam said nothing, just carefully unwound the braid that started at his nape, and moving his long hair around his head. Sam's hands were huge but so very careful, it was simple (one of the hardest things he'd done, but simple) to be unafraid.

There was a sideways tug on his head, a long smooth pull, and Hrafn realized that Sam was combing out his hair. It was a careful, considerate motion, full of Sam's huge fingers tipping his skull back into position when he let the comb sooth him into bad posture and slumping.

Hrafn was overwhelmed for a long moment, and he closed his eyes against the sheer pleasure of this kind of care. It had been so long since this kind of attention was paid to him – only him, not Gabriel, not the archangel under his skin.

"Hrafn, you okay?"

He opened his eyes, suddenly bereft, and looked over at Sam.

"Yes?"

"You kind of zoned out."

"I was enjoying it. No one has brushed my hair for me in a long time."

'I did.' Gabriel sputtered.

'You did it for yourself, eagle chieftain. That was not for me and mine.'

'Eh,' Gabriel said, in a tone that was increasingly familiar.

"I can comb your hair any time you want, Hrafn. It's ... nice," Sam said, and ran his fingers lightly over Hrafn's scalp and through his hair, longer now that it wasn't all bound up.

Hrafn sighed and moved to kiss Sam, the slow sweet promise of Sam's mouth pulling him in like a netted salmon.

'?!' Gabriel suddenly pulsed, alarmed.

'What is it?'

'Someone doesn't belong here,' Gabriel whispered, and his attention narrowed and shot like a bolt through Hrafn's head, dumping him from bed to floor as the angel tried to extend himself and crumpled.

"Hrafn!?" Sam yelped.

"There's someone outside," Hrafn said, and clutched his head, pressing his suddenly throbbing eyes. Gabriel was curled up under his tongue, making his voice thick and sloppy, as the angel writhed in pain. He'd tied them too much into the bind-runes, added to much of himself and his angel when he made the protections strong. "Go, Sam. Go and take your gun."

 

Mimi stared at the tabletop, and tried to keep from crying. Crying was no use, not now. She had to get it together, had to figure out what to say when the deputies got there. It should be simple enough, Sam waking the house when he heard a sound in the night, and her going with him and Hrafn to investigate. But that had resulted with them finding the tree thieves in the act – what had they been thinking, trying to cut down the trees so close to the house? – and then guns and shooting and blood.

"They were thinking that the orchard would make better firewood than the windbreak. The trees are harder wood, after all. They would burn better, longer," Hrafn said, as he dropped into a chair across the table from her.

"But we were here. They had to know that!"

Hrafn shrugged his shoulders. "They thought we wouldn't come out, perhaps? Or that the surety of freezing was more fearsome than the chance of being shot?"

Mimi choked again. "Damnit, no one should die for apple trees! Not when it's almost spring!"

"Why not? They were stealing the trees, depriving all this house of those trees' fruit in the coming year and the heat of the wood, too."

"Hrafn..."

"Thieves die, Mimi. We gave them the chance to run, we gave them the chance to give up. They chose to stay and fight."

Mimi rubbed her eyes. She didn't know that it had been choice, so much as blind panic at getting caught, that had caused someone among the tree-cutters to shoot at them. And miss.

Unfortunately for them, Sam wasn't so incompetent with a gun, nor did he hesitate when people took potshots at him. Nor did Hrafn.

 

Hrafn looked at Sam, tired and sprawled in the warm bed. Sam looked sleepy eyed, but his shoulders were tense. Hrafn knew what that meant, probably. Sam in was a very obvious creature in some ways, and he was feeling guilty about killing the thieves. Just because they were not trolls, Sam regretted killing them, even though they would have killed all the house for the trees – either directly with guns, or indirectly by stealing the wood and the promise it bore of fruit and warming fire..

'Hrafn, what are you doing?' Gabriel asked.

'What I want,' he told his eagle, as he turned and laid his mouth against the edge of Sam's, just an offer, not a demand, not an order. Of course, Sam was already interested, all ready at half a cock-stand, or Hrafn was no judge of men. It wasn't like he'd be unwelcome. Sam wanted a distraction.

"God, yes," Sam mumbled, and reached out for Hrafn's hands, tugging him back into the taller man's arms. Hrafn laughed and went willingly.

Sam seemed fascinated by his hair, now that it was undone and flowing down his back like a maiden's. Hrafn kept his nose from wrinkling at that thought, but something must have shown in his face, because Sam paused.

"I like your hair. Does that bother you?"

Hrafn shrugged. "I should cut it. It's too long for a man, at least here."

"Pfff. You can wear it however long you want. I'm not bothered," Sam proved that by curling a lock in his fingers and giving Hrafn a testing tug.

"All right." Hrafn let Sam drag him down into a better kiss, and yet a better one, until they were both warm and soft and satiated. Sam lay an arm on Hrafn's side, and with that as his blanket, went to sleep.

 

Part Four: blood in the service of the lord of hosts
February rolled around, and this time Sam was ready. He'd asked Hrafn highly specific, rather embarrassing questions, and had worked his way past the blank looks and the obvious stumbling blocks of cultural assumptions before he agreed. Mimi had taken the kids into town for the milk run – they were going to stay in town most of the day, as Sam had told them of their plans – well, at least Sam had told them about slaughtering the horse. That it was a pagan sacrifice, not so much, because they were nominally Christian. Sam didn't think he was, anymore, not after what he'd been through, and Hrafn never had been. And Gabriel's relationship to God was just... too complicated to get into, even with him.

Which was why Sam stood outside, the second of February, while Hrafn fed a few precious peppermint candies to Zap the horse.

The Norseman had threaded scarlet bands around his braid this time, and clubbed it back tighter than normal.

'He okay?' Sam pushed the thought out, hoping that Gabriel was awake enough to respond.

'Define "okay", Sam,' the archangel replied.

'I'm not going to hurt him, doing this?'

'This is his idea, Sam.'

Sam frowned, but Hrafn nodded to him, and Sam nodded back, taking the mare's halter and setting off. He led her around the big oak, round and round as Hrafn sang in a high, thin voice, in a language that no one had heard in over two millennia. Sam didn't understand a bit of it, but he knew it was an invocation and a plea to Thor and all the beneficent powers of the earth.

Even if it didn't work, it couldn't hurt to ask, Sam had decided. The angels certainly weren't doing shit for them; some of the pagan gods might have enough power and enough scruples to help. Even Gabriel had thought Thor might be open to pleas.

Which was why Sam led Zap, with her lightning bolt blaze, around the oak tree nine times. He stopped on the stone that Hrafn had placed as a marker, and hoped this wasn't going to blow up in his face.

Hrafn smiled at Sam as he lead Zap into place, and stretched out a hand to pet her velvet nose. "Good girl," he cooed to the mare, "Valiant girl. You'll carry our pleas to the Red Thor. Such a good girl."

Zap nickered and flicked her ears, and when Hrafn brought up his long knife in his other hand, Sam closed his eyes. Zap didn't make a sound of distress, a testament to Hrafn's skill and long experience with animal slaughter.

When Sam opened his eyes, Zap was down, and Hrafn was kneeling to collect the blood in a bucket and singing again softly. Sam sighed, and got the ropes from where he'd left them at the base of the tree. He tied the ropes around the mare's legs, attached them to the hoist they'd set up in the oak's branches the day before, and started pulling.

Hrafn joined him once the carcass started coming off the ground and it became real work to lift it into the air. They worked together companionably, Sam silent, Hrafn still singing his chant. He kept it up, even when the body was suspended and he cut it open, pulling out viscera and organs and dropping them in different buckets.

Sam took them to the side as Hrafn kept working. The heart he saved on a plate, and he dipped out a bowl of blood, but the other organs and the rest of the blood he took to the house, to be dealt with later.

Hrafn was mixing the blood into paint with his fingers by the time Sam got back. He smiled up as Sam and drew a line from Sam's forehead to his chin with the blood paint. He had already drawn streaks on his own face with the mix, and turned to draw on the oak tree.

'This is so fucking pagan,' Sam thought.

'Ya think?' came Gabriel's retort. 'Pagan, yep. Fucking, not yet.'

Sam winced. 'Let's not talk about that.'

'You're the one who agreed to this, Sam. I'm just along for the ride.'

'You'll tell me if I hur– if I do something wrong.'

Gabriel did something that felt like ice prickling Sam's skin, and said 'I'm not an asshole, Sam.'

'Could have fooled me.'

That made the archangel flare, just a bright sensation of heat that made Sam's skin tighten like the summer sun. 'I don't hurt Hrafn.'

'No, I know you don't,' Sam agreed.

Sam moved forward, and pushed the iron pot onto their little campfire. The water steamed in the cool air – it was surprisingly warm and pleasant for February, but still noticeably cold. Sam stirred the water once, twice, three times clockwise.

Turning to the heart on its platter, he cleaned it up, pulling off membrane and arteries before slicing the heavy organ into bits and dropping them into the pot. He cracked open the bottles of their homebrew, and poured the beer in, one bottle, two, three.

"Good," Hrafn said behind him, as Sam set the lid down.

Sam craned his head to see Hrafn retrieving the rough blanket they'd scrounged for this, and he swallowed hard.

He watched quietly as Hrafn spread the blanket on the ground, and began to take off his boots.

"Hey," Sam said, and crept over to the blanket, reaching out to wrap Hrafn in his arms. He nuzzled Hrafn's glossy bronze hair in its wrapped braid, and stroke a hand down his back.

Hrafn pulled back to look at him, and gave him a crooked smile. "All is well, Sam?"

"I'll be good," Sam said, half promise and half act of will. He bumped his forehead against Hrafn's and slid his hand up to Hrafn's neck, positioning him for a kiss.

Hrafn snorted, an amused, indulgent sound, and let Sam kiss him for several long moments, before he shifted back. His jacket – all that he needed in the surprisingly warm February air – came off, folded and tucked against his boots on the edge of the blanket.

Sam sighed, and pulled his own jacket off. He was not as thoroughly messy as Hrafn, but they'd need to wash everything later. He did retrieve the preciously traded-for and hoarded jar, though.

Hrafn's eyebrows shot up as Sam set it down on the blanket, and even Gabriel ventured a 'Really, Sam?'

"We're not repeating last time, Hrafn. I know what's going on, and I'm actually prepared."'

"All right," Hrafn nodded. "You still must–"

"'Treat you like a woman', yeah, you said. Multiple times. I don't fuck women up the ass without lube either," Sam said. He pulled Hrafn to him, and sighed in exasperation.

They made out for a while, with the horse heart simmering in its pot, and Hrafn almost in Sam's lap. But the Norseman pulled away eventually, turning to face the tree, his back to Sam as he started his quiet chanting again. Sam followed this time, and reached around, his hands over Hrafn's where the other man had been undoing his belt.

Hrafn glanced up at Sam, worry flickering into his eyes for a moment, before Sam kissed him again, awkward as he leaned over Hrafn's shoulder, and unbuckled the belt himself. It was easy to pull it through Hrafn's belt loops, and push the other man's battered jeans and shorts down.

Exposed, in the light of day, the scar and blue tattooing on Hrafn's butt were even weirder, prominent and alien, and Sam ran a finger over them, before he moved his hand to Hrafn's asshole, carefully stroking.

The stutter in Hrafn's chant was gratifying, and Sam spent a long moment just rubbing his finger over Hrafn's hole. He knew his partner liked that, liked gentle fingering and just the hint at penetration which they'd been playing with all winter.

"Can you spread for me?" Sam murmured, and took the opportunity to nip at Hrafn's ear. Obediently, Hrafn braced his legs apart, leaning forward on his hands as Sam reached for the jar of petroleum jelly he'd saved and traded and endured really crass jokes for.

Hrafn gasped and squeaked when Sam pushed one finger into him. Well, the jelly was cold and sticky, and even expecting it, it had to be a bit of a shock. Hrafn tried to recover from his lapse, to take up his chant again. His voice flowed in soft, alien syllables, even as Sam fingered him carefully, even as his skin flushed and his sweat broke, and his balls and cock grew heavy between his legs – where Sam had been forbidden to touch, dammit.

When Sam pulled out to grease up a second finger, Hrafn was panting his words, and as far as Sam could tell, he lost his place entirely when Sam actually put the second finger into him. Sam smiled at that, and leaned down to kiss the small of Hrafn's back, to slide his free hand under the other man's shirt and stroke the flexing muscles along his spine.

"Oh, Sam," Hrafn gasped.

"Now?" Sam asked. He wanted to, really, but he needed Hrafn to be ready this time, not gritting his teeth and enduring.

'Yes, dammit!' Gabriel snapped, making both Hrafn and Sam jerk in surprise and then fall over each other, giggling.

"Way to break a mood, Gabriel," Sam said after he recovered enough to sit up.

'Now!' Gabriel snapped.

Sam tugged Hrafn's braid off his shoulder, getting the other man's attention from where he was wiping his eyes in mirth.

"Yes," Hrafn nodded, and got back on his hands and knees.

Sam ran his hand over Hrafn's meaty buttocks, just admiring and possessive for a moment, and then unbuckled his own jeans. A quick shove down, and then scooping a handful of petroleum jelly for himself, and he was ready. His cock slid greasily over Hrafn's asshole, teasing, and Sam leaned down to Hrafn's ear.

"Okay, push now," he told the other man, and grabbed his own dick to push in. Hrafn opened around him like a bloom, just giving way with perfect acceptance. Sam groaned at that, the heat and the grip and the way Hrafn's hips twisted as Sam pushed in.

"You're so sweet," Sam panted.

'I bet you say that to all the girls,' Gabriel said.

"Shut up, Asvald," Hrafn growled, even as he pushed back against Sam. His grumbling at his angel devolved into throaty grunts as Sam pulled back and pushed forward again, long slow motions that worked on Sam's control and made Hrafn come pretty much unglued.

He focused on the slide, the steady effort of thrusting, one hand wrapping up around Hrafn's chest until Sam's fingers gripped Hrafn's collarbone and his thumb brushed the other man's throat. That was leverage, same as Sam's other hand splaying forward to wrap around Hrafn's thigh – leverage and connection and just a little bit of extra control in the way that Sam was able to pull Hrafn back onto his dick, was able to bring him back to lick and nip and bite.

Hrafn squirmed under him, not trying to get away, more to chase pleasure in the twist of their hips against each other. The guttural abandon of his groans told Sam that. Well, and Gabriel's strange, soft flaring, magical and simple as dust motes in a sunrise.

Sam lost, not control, but restraint, somewhere along the way, maybe when the alien heat of Gabriel's presence flared through Sam's skin, start with his cock and erupting outward like a slow-motion raindrop splashing down, alien and beautiful and very strange.

Sam lost his rhythm and yanked Hrafn backwards, hands clamping bruising tight at shoulder and thigh as he thumped his way to orgasm. His teeth were out, and he bit hard through cloth down into flesh and burning angel that lay under it.

Afterward, Sam was slumped over Hrafn in an uncoordinated fashion, and panted for breath.

"Are you finished then?" Hrafn asked, his voice shaky but carefully, scrupulously polite, even though Sam was draped over him like an old blanket. Or an orgasm-felled Winchester, to be honest.

"You didn't come," Sam said after he rolled off and flopped onto his back. He panted as he watched Hrafn attempt to kneel up and set himself to rights.

'Can't get anything by you, Winchester,' Gabriel said, while Hrafn just looked up a with rueful, cockeyed smile. He might be covered in sweat and had grease and Sam's come all over his ass, but his cock was calming from lack of activity, not satiation.

"Right," Sam said, "Can't have that."

Hrafn yelped in surprise as Sam grabbed him and pulled him down. Squawked in alarm as Sam threw one leg over him to pin him with weight – Hrafn had a lot of stringy muscle, but Sam was bigger and quite able to overpower him.

"Sam, the rite–!"

"You didn't come," Sam said, and tucked Hrafn full against him, positioning even as the other man wriggled. "I'd do this for a woman, if I didn't get her off with fucking, so don't grumble," Sam ordered, even as he slid his hand down over Hrafn's ass and flicked at his hole with two fingers.

Hrafn made a high impossible whine, and damn near levitated in Sam's arms, pushing up with his whole body, even though he dropped his head and whimpered a moment later.

"Feels good, right?" Sam asked. Not waiting for an answer, he pushed all around, firm touches that teased the ring of muscle as Hrafn made gibbering sounds in his ear. When Sam pressed again, Hrafn opened up around him, and Sam slid his fingers in, crooking them and pushing down against the prostrate.

Hrafn made an unintelligible noise and squirmed, not forward or back, but just against. Sam rotated his hand, twisting his fingers inside Hrafn as he swept his thumb forward, just behind the other man's balls.

'Clever monkey...' Gabriel purred.

"Yeah, opposable thumbs are good," Sam said.

"Brat," Hrafn hissed.

Sam looked at him, huddled outside and half-naked and yelping in Sam's arms in the most beautiful fashion. Sam kissed his mouth before leaning more weight on Hrafn, making him roll on his side as Sam fingered him, just the way he would have done Jess or Madison or even Ruby if he'd managed to leave any of them unsatisfied.

Hrafn didn't last long, shaking apart after a few moments of the circular back and forth of Sam's hand working his prostate up. He shivered and moaned and made breathy little groans, and came as Sam stroked him inside and out with fingers and thumb.

"So," Sam asked, after Hrafn had flopped down beside him, and they both sprawled for a moment, trying to catch their breath after pursuing that orgasm down. "Do you think that worked like you wanted to?"

Hrafn gave Sam an incredulous look, and burst out laughing. Sam smiled, and took the kiss Hrafn pressed to his mouth as a good sign.

"Come Sam, you've rested enough. We've work to do – meat to hang, meals to prepare. Maybe even fresh blood sausage for Bonnie and Mimi when they get home, hmmm?" Hrafn laughed again, and found his pants.

Sam sighed, and sat up, tucking himself back in and straightening in his jeans. They'd be filthy and tired by the end of the day, but there would be butchered meat hanging in the smoke house, and sausages waiting to dry, and if he knew Hrafn's industriousness, meat canned in jars, black soup on the stove, and a dish cobbled together from the tough animal-feed sorghum for their employers.

 

"Mmm?" Sam woke confused, dim half light from the halfway rousing him. The guy in the door was totally unfamiliar, and that made him bolt upright.

"Ah... Stanley, right?" he asked, guessing at the blond hair and round face. "Gimme a minute?"

Sam slipped out of bed, and dragged on his pants and two more shirts. Hrafn folded himself into the warm center of the blankets, and sank back to sleep.

"Sorry..." Sam said out in the hall. "Mimi didn't say anything about you getting back so soon. I'm Sam. Sam Winchester."

"Stanley Richmond. I... sorry about waking you up, but we need help. Mimi said you're good."

Sam nodded, and followed Stanley down to the first floor. Jake Green was in the living room, and so were a few other men, a Ranger patrol, Sam realized.

"Sam!" Jake said, "We need you to help Del."

Del was the Ranger clutching a field-bandaged arm and trying not to bleed on the floor.

"Kitchen table," Sam said, hauling Del up and towards the sturdy piece of furniture. "And more light."

A little bit of shoving, and Sam had an impromptu operating theater. Dr. Duwaly would give them hell in the morning, for pulling on Sam's hunter's training instead of actual formal medical education.

Mimi was up and boiling water, which hurried thing along. Sam retrieved his kit from his room, cleaned the wound with soap and water, and disinfected it with a swab of precious iodine, and then began to stitch Del up with dental floss.

"That'll hold until you can get to the medical center in the morning," Sam said as he finished.

"You'll have to stay here, Del." Jake told the wounded man. "We can send a cart in the morning."

"We'll bring him in," Mimi cut in. "He can ride with the milk delivery."

Jake nodded, and herded his Patrol out into the cold night.

Sam nodded, and went into the kitchen to boil his tools with the remaining hot water. Best to clean them now, and not waste the fuel. Mimi and Stanley took the wounded Del upstairs, tucking him into the bedroom with Sean, most probably. Hopefully, anyway. Sam wouldn't begrudge a wounded man space on his bed if it was necessary, but Hrafn and he barely fit the old bed, and another guy would make them into sardines.

"We're delivering milk daily now?" he heard Stanley ask as the returned farmer came back down the stairs.

"Some of it; we bring it to the school. Kids, you know?"

"No... what the hell, Mimi?"

"Every other farm but yours and the Radacks, the cows went dry."

"Oh... damnit."

"Bonnie hired Kat on because she had cows that were still giving milk. Sam and his partner came too."

"'Partner'?" Stanley asked, his tone half doubtful and half sarcastic.

"Partner," Mimi said firmly. "He wants to pretend he's not in a glass closet, let him, Stanley."

Sam decided that it was the perfect time to remind Mimi and Bonnie's brother that he existed.

"I've boiled my tools clean, and laid them out to dry, Mimi. If you don't mind, I'll put them away after breakfast. If I go back to bed, I might even get in another hour or two before dawn wakes me."

Mimi looked a little shamefaced, like she knew that Sam had heard it all. Stanley had the grace to look flustered and embarrassed.

Sam just nodded and went back up to bed. It was really too complicated to explain what Hrafn was, and people got it wrong even when he'd left out the total weirdness that was Gabriel, so he'd stopped bothering. If people wanted to think he and Hrafn were all 'Brokeback Mountain' for each other, that was fine by him now. He had bigger things to worry about than people thinking he was gay – it was half-true, he supposed, if you had an idiotic definition of 'bi', anyway.

 

Bill dreamed. The early spring was turning out to be even more anxious than winter, because with the first blooms popping up – crocuses and snowdrops and johnny-jump-ups and the few redbuds that survived the desperate need for firewood – were making people realize that they'd almost made through. Almost, being the word, since everything was growing again but nothing was really edible yet. The first crops were still weeks away, in late April if they were lucky, and would be things like rhubarb and radishes and pea shoots.

Dealing with people who just realized how close they were to survival and yet how easily it could slip from them, and how desperation made them act – crime had shot up again, after slowing in winter, just because it had been too cold for people to be out and getting into trouble during the worst of it – well, it was no wonder that Bill had another of his anxiety nightmares.

Bill hated these dreams. They were why he didn't watch war movies much anymore – and by war movies, he means any kind of war movies: WWII, Civil War, Revolutionary, fucking Star Wars, he couldn't watch any of them without risking weird freaky dreams. Sometimes it was simple, where he replayed watching the movie in his dream.

Sometimes, it was horrible and disjointed and must be like a combat flashback – Bill didn't know, because he didn't go into the army, he went into the sheriff's department when he finished high school. And in all the years he was a deputy, he never shot anyone before the September Attacks, barely ever even drew his gun, and that's even with the county being well along the transport routes for meth and weed and any number of other drugs.

But this was a horrible dream, because he could smell gunpowder and fire and he knew there was death out there in the hot night, wherever he was, and he knew it was a dream, but he was going to be trapped no matter how aware he was that it was a dream.

The trees were straight and tall and utterly foreign, and Bill wondered what the hell could have caused this nightmare, because it's not like there is even TV to show war movies anymore.

He looked down at his hands, and he was sure he's dreaming, because he didn't have three thumbs, and he didn't have feathers, and yet he did now, so definitely a dream. Of course, he was still wearing his duty uniform, which was just typical and a lot better than being naked, but he never had anything useful for his dream location – never a pickaxe when he wound up on a mountain, never a coat in a snowstorm, and never, ever his gun, even though it was part of a deputy's uniform.

Something exploded off to his left, hot and oily and bright, so Bill dashes right, into the woods. He got ten bounding steps and fell over – he was in a creek, plunging under water and thrashing.

It took a moment to get his feet under himself, and then he's waist deep in water, some creek that switches back on itself, and the light was weird, and the sky was gray and it was raining. Of course it was.

There was someone on the creek bank, behind the reeds, and Bill found himself wading closer, even though he knew it wasn't going to turn out well. This was one of his anxiety nightmares – they never turn out well.

He parted the reeds, and he saw one person crouched over another. He... the person on the ground, that was him, except not. He didn't look like that, but he knew it was him anyway, in loose black clothes and a military rifle strapped over his shoulder. There was blood all over his chest and his mouth, and his eyes were fixed and staring.

That was him, and he was dead. It was one of those dreams. He wanted to wake up. Really, really wanted to wake up. Even the dream about the prairie dogs with laser eyes and the fascist robots would be better, and that was always a terrible dream.

The other person, the one crouched over the dead him, he didn't even know what they are – man or woman, he didn't know. It wasn't important, though, because that person was cutting open his dead body with a silver machete. Bill watched in disgust as the figure opened his corpse, and reached into his chest.

His heart, his bleeding heart, was drawn out. It beat like the center of the world, and the figure brought it up. Bill gasped as the other bites into his heart, eating the bitter organ. It hurt, it hurt in his chest. They were eating his heart.

The person whirled, stared at Bill with eyes of amber, of flame. There was blood around their mouth, painting their sharp teeth as they took another bite, and another, devouring his heart.

"My heart. You're eating my heart," Bill heard himself whimper.

"I'm saving you," the figure said, in a voice of brass.

"It's my heart."

"And it's bitter. So bitter, my son," the figure responded. Its wings – it had wings, a cascade of them, white as snow and blue as the sky and black as sin – ruffled and mantled and resettled.

"Why? ... I need my heart."

"You will die without it."

"So you shouldn't eat it!"

The figure laughed, threw back its head and laughed, with its bloodstained mouth and brassy hair and the crown of light and thorns on its head.

"I do what must," the figure said. "I do it so you will live. You need your heart."

Bill looked down at himself, at the blood that was now soaking his shirt. "Stop eating my heart," he whined, and felt himself pitch forward, into the water, into death, into a new life.

It's one of those dreams, he knew. He'd have a terrible morning, when he woke up.

And he did – a terrible morning topped that ended in near disaster, but not for him.

 

Part Five: only the rain knows

It was Hrafn's horse Skalm coming back that threw the Richmond farm into terror – the mare was torn up over her spotted rump, and her saddle tacky. It didn't help that the sun was low, setting in the early winter evening.

Jake took it all in, Stanley's rapid babble, Bonnie's hands quick and clear but her voice sloppy with nerves, and Sam Winchester worried, almost panicked, frowning. Not that Jake could blame him – he wouldn't be any better off if it was Emily (or Heather) lost out them.

Jake sent a bicycle kid back to town, fast as possible, to tell the sheriff's office, and then turned to Jimmy. "How do we search for missing people in the dark?"

Jimmy frowned. "We can't, not without lights," the big deputy said, and looked worried. "We need to start now – the sun will be down in less than two hours."

Jake sighed, and broke the patrol up – two riders in opposite directions, to tell the abutting patrols they were looking for the missing Kat and Hrafn, and then Jimmy, Stanley, and Bonnie to go east along the road, and Sam and he himself to go west, searching.

The fading light and the cold wind made him think of his disastrous hunting trip with Stanley and Mimi, back before Thanksgiving. But Hrafn and Kat were only visiting between farms, checking on some of the stock Kat had rented out to the Vreeland farm. They should have been inside the patrol circle the entire time.

But they tracked back and tracked back, and it got darker and more dismal. The Vreeland farm was far out from town like the Richmond one, and the windbreaks made it hard to search, distorting shapes along the roads into crazy quilts.

Finally they spotted something. Or more precisely, she spotted them...

"...sam?"

It was sixteen-year old Kat, fetched up in a ditch. She was all over with blood and scratches, and she looked at them blearily.

"KAT!" Sam bellowed, and scrambled down into the ditch, heedless of the bad slope.

"I'm sorry, Sam. I'm sorry," Kat was babbling and clutching at Sam's coat with nerveless fingers.

"Kat, are you hurt? Where's Hrafn? What did this to you?"

"It was a monster! It killed Snookums, and started to eat him!"

"Snookums?" Jake asked. He was readying a flare gun – yeah, it was precious resource, but finding one of the two alive, it was news, and hopefully setting off a flare would get Kat back to town – and the med center, which she obviously needed – much sooner.

Sam winced, "Her horse. Kat, where's Hrafn?"

"I tried to get him up, but he didn't go. It killed Snooks..."

Sam frowned, and he jerked his chin up, indicating that Jake should turn his flashlight on. "Shit, Kat," Sam said after he checked her eyes with the poor light of Jake's flashlight, "I think you've got a concussion."

"I'm sorry..."

"That's okay. Where did you leave Hrafn? Do you remember?"

"Under the monster. I couldn't move it. Oh," she said in faint surprise. "I think it was a tiger, Sam. Maybe..."

Jake was about to suggest that they try to get Kat up and moving back toward town and the med center, when he heard the rattle of Stanley and company riding up – with, wonder of wonders, Del back on his bicycle, and a smattering of off-duty Rangers, including Bill on that fast gray pony he was leasing... from Sam and Hrafn, come to think of it.

"We found Kat. Del, go back to town, go straight to the med center. Tell them we're bringing in Kat, and Sam thinks she's concussed."

Jake watched Del speed off, and then delegated two of the newly arrived Rangers to escort Kat back. She was wobbly as hell – the concussion, probably – and banged up badly, but nothing broken, and nothing bleeding anymore. They packed her up riding behind one of her escorts, and hoped for the best.

Fanning out, Jake had them search along the road, and through the windbreak trees into the fields. Whatever Kat had seen out there, whatever it was that had attacked them, it might still be there.

He was knocking his way through a scrubby row of cottonwood when he heard a piercing whistle, off in the distance. He crashed through the stunted trees, looking for sound and light, and found them a quarter mile down the road, where the gravel dipped and there was a little sheltered hollow, covered and hidden by windbreak trees. Jake caught sight of a horse's body, collapsed on the gravel with its tack still on, and ran even harder.

But then he stopped in shock

"Jesus Christ," Stanley yelped as he came up beside Jake, who was staring at the sight before him. "It was a fucking tiger!"

Jake looked down, where Bonnie was crouched with Sam over their missing man. Hrafn was on the ground, looking flattened and possibly dead, and there was a tiger – an honest to god tiger – collapsed on top of him. No wonder Kat hadn't been able to move him – it probably weighed twice what she and Hrafn did combined.

It was also a very dead tiger.

Courtesy of the shining silvery blade that was poking through its head. Hrafn's hand was still wrapped around the hilt.

"What the hell?" Jake gasped.

 

"Goddamned canned hunt ranches," Bill snarled later that night, polishing his shoes. The black leather was not quite mirror-finished, but if he kept working at it, he could probably see himself in it soon.

"Bill, calm down," Kim said. "You'll wake the kids."

Bill glanced guiltily towards the girls' room, and then where the crib was tucked around the odd little corner that they had used for a nursery when Linh was small, and had kept set up in hope. A forlorn hope it had been too, and while Ríkvé was a delight and a balm, Bill wasn't quite convinced they'd get to keep her once things went back to normal. She was a sweet little girl – surely she had family out there somewhere who would want her.

"A tiger, Kim! Some idiot had a goddamned tiger somewhere, and not enough sense to shoot it when the food ran out."

"I know, Bill."

"Friththjófsson might be tough as boot leather, but even he—"

"Bill," Kim interrupted his rant by putting a hand on his chin and tilting his head up, "put that down and come to bed."

Bill looked at the shoe and brush in hand, and put them down, wiping the shoe clean and tucking the brush back in his kit. He ducked into the bathroom long enough to wash his hands and brush his teeth.

Kim was waiting for him in bed.

He loved her so.

 

As far as Jake would have said, as recently as yesterday, Hrafn Friththjófsson was a really good farmhand with a weird thick accent and a penchant for flamboyant hairstyles. "Like Elmer Fudd with Yosemite Sam's mustache," was his dad's pithy description, which Jake avoided repeating even in his head, because Hrafn might be short and not quite fluent in English and probably a little cracked in the head, considering he firmly believed he had an angel on his shoulder – an angel named 'Oswald', hand to God – but he was also a man who could and had killed with little remorse. And yesterday he had killed a tiger with only a long knife.

Today, as Jake came into the medical clinic room and saw Hrafn's eyes as he looked up at Sam as the other farmhand finished off braiding his hair, maybe he had to revise his opinion a little.

Hrafn's eyes, which were usually a light brownish grayish greenish color, were silver and didn't look like eyes. They looked like wells, like binocular ends, like Jake could peer into them and see deeper than he should, deeper than he should be able to. They looked like they were windows into someplace deeper than Hrafn's skull.

'Jake,' Hrafn signed neatly, causing Sam to turn and look up.

"Jake," the tall man said. Like his boyfriend often had silvery pools of light where his eyes should be and it wasn't anything to be alarmed by.

"Sam...What the hell?"

Hrafn snorted, his face twisting up into a smirk that was full of mischief and trouble. Sam caught the expression, and tapped his finger against Hrafn's long nose. "Behave, for god's sake."

'Father not care,' Hrafn signed. 'Away fishing.'

"Bullshit."

"Sam..." Jake wanted an explanation, and he wanted it real soon now.

"He's being a brat." Hrafn responded to Sam's statement by sticking out his tongue, closing his eyes – thank god, Jake thought, because glowing eyeballs that looked like pools were freaky – and snuggled down in the bed.

'Hrafn sleeps. I go sleep now. Go away, you,' Hrafn signed, and tugged the blanket over himself with Sam's help.

Jake walked outside with Sam, until they were completely out of the building.

"I guess you have some questions..." Sam said.

"What the hell?!"

Sam laughed, and looked sidelong at Jake with a rueful expression. "You thought Hrafn was crazy when he said he had an angel, didn't you?"

"Angels don't exist!" Jake protested.

Sam frowned at him, his face hardening. "That’s a very limiting view to take, Jake. Especially because you've just seen him."

"I don't know what I saw! Weird fluorescent eye-drops, maybe, but that wasn't–"

"An angel? He's not too impressive now, I know. At the top of his game, he's kind of scary, when he's not infuriating. But he tore himself up saving me, and then the September Attacks came..."

"Are you saying Hrafn's angel is real and it was hurt by the bombs?"

Sam tilted his head and frowned. "More like all that death, all at once. Maybe. I'm not sure. He was dead, before he saved me. Maybe God didn't put him back together at full strength for some reason."

Jake had had enough, "And so he's lying in our medical clinic, sleeping off a tiger attack?! Because obviously, even being an angel isn't proof against Murphy's Law?!"

Sam gave Jake an annoyingly patient look, "Jake, maybe you should sit down. Take deep breaths. I know it's really disorientating, but there really is an angel sharing Hrafn's body. They have to have Vessels – human bodies, but they'll strong-arm people if they don't get a 'yes' first off – because they're kind of dangerous without them. The first one I ever met accidentally blinded someone because she was trying to look at him."

"What?" Jake yelped. "He's in the medical center!"

"Relax. Hrafn's been his Vessel a long time, Jake. Nothing's going to happen. Hrafn's his True Vessel – a perfect fit, a radiation suit, except protecting us from him."

Jake thought Sam's babble sounded like part of a flaky science fiction plot. In fact, maybe that was what he saw... maybe Hrafn's 'angel' was some sort of weird unknown phenomena. Or, if it actually was a real... being, for lack of a better word... maybe it was a higher dimensional being, like in 'Flatland' with the sphere talking to the Square, except it was talking through Hrafn because it couldn't talk to humans in its normal state because it was too confusing to three-dimensional beings.

Sam laughed when Jake said that. "Sure, whatever Jake. If it makes you happy, think of him as a four dimensional visitor. He's still an angel."

Jake frowned as Sam ambled off toward the horse paddock, and turned himself towards Bailey's. Horrible rotgut or not, he needed a drink.

 

Mimi took charge the day Hrafn came home from the med center a week later – she gave Bonnie a list of things to do before they got back, for her and Stanley and Sean, then grabbed the softest, warmest blankets she could and helped Sam hitch his mares to the wagon. The drop-off at the school was easy, and the empty milk cans rattled as they went to the med center.

Kenchy looked relieved to be discharging Hrafn, even though he fussed and worried. From what Jake had said about the displaced doctor, that was pretty standard behavior, so Mimi just wrote down all his instructions and let Sam question and fret. She even drove the wagon home to let Sam cuddle with his boyfriend in the back, and managed okay, she thought.

Hrafn roused enough to squawk a protest when Sam picked him up and carried him bridal-style into the house and up the stairs. Stanley, sweet dumb man that he was, didn't help anything by wolf-whistling. Sam didn't help either by reacting and giving Stanley the finger, which just made him, Kat, and Sean and even Bonnie laugh. Hrafn signed something one-handed that Mimi didn't quite catch, but his face was vile, and Bonnie just sniggered more.

Sadly, that was the best thing about Hrafn coming home.

The next morning he was installed on the living room couch, and in very poor humor. Mimi couldn't blame him – too tender to move much, though Dr. Kenchy Duwaly said he was healing extremely well, and too much in pain to read or do much light work of any kind. He managed half a glove in that needling technique he knew – he'd taken a ball of yarn from the knitting basket Mimi had herself appropriated from the attic months ago, and a steel tapestry needle as well – but he kept falling into naps.

"You need to take it easier, Hrafn," Mimi said.

"I am bored," Hrafn grumbled.

"Stanley and the kids will be back from the planting soon," Mimi said. She'd been left behind to look after Hrafn, and work on cheese-making. The calving season had left them with extra milk from cows suddenly producing again, and she was determined to figure this out, because cheese lasted a long time. And Hrafn, for all that he couldn't keep his eyes open for fifteen minutes at a time, did know a lot about dairying. Which was why she trying to make curds using the starter yeast she'd kept going all winter for bread, and asking him questions about cheese-making when he was awake.

"I am bored, and I can't even talk to my angel," Hrafn went on.

Mimi blinked at that, and came around to dinner table to look at him. Not that she wanted to encourage his delusion, but... "Why can't you talk to your angel?"

"Asvald is too tired. I did not die because of him, but he exhausted himself to save me," Hrafn admitted. He looked utterly weary and gray, curled under an afghan on the couch, one hand pressed over his eyes like the light pained him.

"Your angel is named 'Oswald'?" Mimi asked, trying not to laugh at the silliness of it.

Hrafn nodded.

"Okay..." Mimi said, because really what could she say to that. "Want to sit at the table and watch me try to make cheese?"

"Can I mock your attempts?" Hrafn asked, peeking up from beneath his shielding hand.

"Of course. But I'll mock back," Mimi said, and came into the living room to give him a hand up.

"That's a fair trade," Hrafn said.

 

Sam had finished with the milk run and had headed over to Gracie's to see if he could pick up something in the way of a treat for Hrafn. Carrots or parsnips – something they didn't already have on the farm that would be mild and sweet enough to tempt him to eat more. Well, sweet enough to tempt Gabriel into wanting to eat, which would mean Hrafn eating as a side effect. The angel's presence meant that Hrafn was healing unbelievably rapidly, but Gabriel was really weak still, and not able to repair Hrafn all the way. So, extra food – sweet and tempting as Sam could scrounge for it.

To his surprise, there was a train of four mules, laden with packsaddles, lined up outside the store, and a tall black man dickering with Dale at the doorway. As Sam approached, he realized what the man had for trade was... anti-biotics? And Sam recognized those bottles, still with their plastic safety-wrap – those were strong painkillers – oxycodone, in fact. There was no way the man had that legally – but Sam didn't care, oh hell no. He'd buy that shit for Hrafn, if the man's price was anywhere near something he could afford.

Dale and the man looked up when he approached, falling silent.

"You have oxycodone," Sam said, not quite believing it even as he looked at the boxes open in front of Dale for inspection.

"I'm buying it," Dale snapped.

Sam frowned at the teenager. Dale and Skylar would mark it up a hundred percent, if not more. They'd turned out to have the hearts of robber barons, now that Dale's store was the only one getting anything resembling supplies on regular basis. Sam was pretty sure they were buying from hijackers and diverters to get their supply.

Case in point, the guy with the four mules... he had pharmaceuticals, and those were just impossible to get through legal means. So he was a grey or black marketeer.

"Well, now. We haven't made a deal yet," the man purred to Dale.

"We're making a deal now! You can't just sell to someone else!"

"If he has a competitive offer—-"

"I just want one bottle," Sam said.

"I'm only selling by the case," the man snapped.

"One case, then," Sam said.

"Don't cut me out, Winchester," Dale snarled.

"It's for Hrafn," Sam said.

Dale's anger cleared up a little, though he still looked pissed. "I'll sell you a bottle – two! – at cost, then. But I'm buying the lot. No one is going to undercut me on price," he said.

"Ah, a budding monopolist, I see," the man said, grinning, and then he and Dale got down to serious bargaining.

Sam watched the back and forth with nerves, and was relieved when the price of four small diesel engines plus several large bags of salt was reached. Dale immediately cut open one of the boxes, took two bottles out, and shoved them at Sam. "Consider it payment for the smoked horse-meat last week. Sign the register, and we're clear for this."

Sam signed the ledger book that Dale and Skylar had been using to keep track of their invoices, and winced. The oxycodone was expensive as hell – hopefully, it would be enough for Hrafn, or they'd wind up slaughtering another horse to pay for things.

The trader was securing some of his new goods to his mules when Sam came out the door. Dale's workers were banging around in the back of the store, pulling out the rest of what he was owed.

"That was an interesting transaction," he remarked. "Naked cut-throat greed, it's not rare these days, but that young man is clever with it."

Sam tucked the drug bottles into his jacket and zipped it up, securing them from theft or loss as best he could. "Dale's on his own. His mother died in Atlanta."

"Ah," the man said. "He seems to be doing all right then. Perhaps I will come trade with him again..."

"If you have medicine again," Sam said, "you'll find buyers. Mister..?"

"Yuri Ivanovitch Koltsemirov. And you?"

"Sam Winchester," Sam said automatically, and then blinked, "Your name's Yuri?"

"Sure," the trader said with a grin. "Haven't you ever heard of Black Russians?"

Sam rolled his eyes.

"And this is Ralph," Yuri said, patting the enormous canine at his side. Said beast looked up at Sam with an open happy face, and bounced down into a play-bow.

"Hey, Ralph..." Sam smiled at the red dog, and petted its huge head. It dropped at filthy and battered tennis ball into his hand.

"Damn," Dale said quietly. He'd come up to drop one of the fifty-pound bags of salt in Koltsemirov's pile of goods.

Sam looked up, and grimaced. "Mayor Andersen..."

Koltsemirov looked askance at them, and then over to the mayor and the men walking with him. It was Carmichael, the town manager, and Deputy Koehler.

"This is going to be a mess," Dale groaned.

"What? Why?" Koltsemirov asked.

"The mayor keeps blocking me when someone from outside of town tries to buy a lot of salt."

"Ah..." Kolsemirov turned to Sam, "Mr. Winchester, if you would do me a great favor and take Ralph somewhere for a few minutes. He's a good fellow, but I'd rather he not be here if a... disagreement breaks out. He's quite protective you see."

Sam looked down at the huge dog that was still wagging its tail hopefully and eyeing ball pointedly, and then grimaced. The dog could turn a loud argument into a lethal fight, as big as it was.

"Yeah, I can do that. C'mon boy, c'mon, Ralph, let's go throw your ball in the park."

 

Jake looked across the park – just off Main Street, up Flora, it was just big enough for a pick-up game of soccer under its planted elms. Except the elms had all been chopped down and rooted up for firewood, leaving huge ugly gashes in what should have been a shaded meadow for the kids to run in and play on the plastic equipment.

There was a big red dog, shaggy and lupine, chasing a tennis ball across the grass. Sam Winchester was throwing it. A cluster of children were whooping encouragement, and when the dog brought back the ball, they mobbed the animal with petting hands.

Jake looked at the animal with a weather-eye. It was big, and had the rubbery grey-black marks of scars on its nose and jaw. He wasn't going to trust it around kids quite yet.

"Where did the dog come from, Sam?" he asked.

"He came in with the trader," Sam said, his attention focused on throwing the ball, with a snapping pitch that resulted in a screwball that had the dog falling over itself to twist for the ball.

"Trader?" Jake asked, perking up with interest. Someone from outside meant news, and maybe useful supplies.

"Guy calling himself Koltsemirov, came in with four mules and Ralph," Sam nodded at the dog, who was trotting back with an absolutely filthy ball in its mouth. "He has cipro, oxycodone, all kinds of meds."

"Meds?" Jake breathed. Of all the things the medical center didn't have, drugs were at the top of the list. They could tear up sheets for bandages and boil instruments for sterilization, but drugs were impossible to replicate. The best they'd been managing was pot carefully ignored by the deputies and alcohol made for fuel used as antiseptic.

"He was negotiating with Dale Turner for salt and supplies when the mayor showed up." Sam didn't bother to conceal his frown, and tossed the ball for the dog hard, way into the stump-holes of the ravaged trees.

"Oh," Jake said.

"Yeah," Sam sighed.

"It's not that bad. Gray Anderson owns half the mine – he's a business man. He knows how to negotiate a trade," Jake told Sam, trying to convince himself that this was going to come out all right as he spoke to the other man.

Sam gave him a hard look, then shrugged, turning away to focus on the dog.

"He's a big thing," Jake ventured after a moment, trying for something innocuous.

Sam was apparently willing to go along with it, because he ruffled the big animal's ears as it trotted back. "Yeah, but you want a big dog on the roads. People are less likely to attack if there is a big dog around to bite them."

"That explains those Rotties you've got," Jake said.

"Fenja and Menja are cow-dogs," Sam said. "We couldn't keep a dog that couldn't pull its own weight.... we had a nasty collie dog for a while – it tried to bite and wouldn't herd the cattle."

"What happened to it?"

Sam twisted into a rueful smile. "Hrafn killed it. And skinned it. And then we ate it."

Jake grimaced. That explained Jenny Brubaker's new coat at Christmas...

"Yeah," Sam agreed to Jake's unhappy look. "But we were kind of starving then. Yak milk only gets you so far."

Jake frowned – he'd seen the pinkish milk from Kat Brubaker's yak herd, and worked up his courage to taste it on a trip to the Richmond farm one Saturday, when there was enough to spare him, an adult, half a glass. The calcium and fat were worth the strangeness.

"You said the mayor was negotiating for drugs..."

Sam rolled his eyes, and handed off the ball to one of the kids to throw, before the stepped away from the knot of grade-schoolers and the dog who was basking in their enthusiastic admiration.

"I know I'm not from around here Jake, but if the mayor screws this up..." Sam murmured soft and fierce.

"He won't. He knows how hard it is to get drugs. And how much we need antibiotics–"

"He hoards the salt, Jake. It's the only really valuable thing we've got to trade beside the food, which we need for ourselves. But he sits on it like a broody dragon. We can't eat the salt, Jake."

Jake frowned at Sam. He hadn't voted for Mayor Andersen, but the man had been elected quite legally. "We have to trust that he knows what he's doing, Sam."

Sam just rolled his eyes again, and muttered, "Hrafn needs medicine, Jake. The pot helps, but not enough."

Oh, Jake thought, that's what eating him.

"He'll get it, Sam. Don't get yourself worked up over it. The mayor knows how much we need supplies for the med center."

Sam's doubting yet wistful look made Jake feel like a heel for his false reassurance. He wasn't entirely sure Grey wouldn't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, if the trader did have antibiotics and painkillers and had been trying to negotiate with Dale. The teenager was too young to really have the responsibility for the town's grocery and general store, but he had managed to keep it semi-stocked for months. If selling salt by the bushel would get them drugs that were desperately needed, maybe the mayor would let things go for once.

 

"He had drugs?" Stanley asked again. Mimi wanted to thump him, just a little bit. Sam needed reassurance, not Stanley's incredulity.

Sam responded by reaching into his jacket and taking out a bottle – a big bottle, labeled oxycodone.

"I took this to the med-center, asked Dr. Duwaly to check it – he doesn't have the lab to run a chemical analysis, but it was still sealed with plastic, and the pills are the right shape and color and markings. He doesn't think they're counterfeit – since I left another bottle with him for the med-center, I think he’s pretty sure of."

Mimi frowned at the bottle. "But where did they come from?"

Sam hefted the bottle in his hand and said, "Probably fell off the back of a Red Cross truck. As long as they work, it's fine by me."

Mimi raised her eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. Sam was willing to take a chance that he was receiving stolen medicine – she'd tried to arrange the theft of pesticides right after the bombings, which was she would probably admit was worse, if pressed.

 

"Hrafn?" Sam said softly, looking into the darkened room.

The figure in the bed stirred, but the eyes were silvery when he looked up at Sam, not Hrafn's hazel. Gabriel was leaking out again.

"Is he... how is he?" Sam asked, closing the door and moving over to sit on the bed.

'Crappy' Gabriel signed, not daring to speak. He'd tried that once at the med-center, and blown out every electrical device in the room, even though they'd all been broken since the EMP months ago.

Sam laid his hand on that familiar face, stroking whiskers and cheekbone.

"Can he hear me?"

'Yes. Tired, not sleep.'

"I have a surprise for you, then. Both of you."

Gabriel lifted the body's eyebrows, and signed, 'Give?'

Sam chuckled, and pulled the bottle of pills out, showing it to Gabriel.

'Drugs?'

"Oxycodone. It's a painkiller, an opiate. Dr. Duwaly gave me a prescription for Hrafn, so it's even legal for me to have them."

'Human laws shit,' Gabriel signed.

"Yeah yeah, and you're the Angel of Judgment," Sam said. "Do you think you can swallow one with water?"

Gabriel shrugged, signing 'Open bottle?'

Sam got what he wanted, and opened the bottled, shaking out one of the pills onto his hand. Gabriel peered at it, and then nodded his head. He let Sam feed the pill to him, and then help him drink a glass of water.

Sam held Gabriel, held him and Hrafn both, as the drug began to work and they turned boneless and limp from lack of pain. He stroked the brown hair in its plait, and smiled at the sleepy glaring he got in response, from eyes that were hazel instead of leaking silver.

"You sleep now. Both of you."

They nodded, two beings entwined in one body, and Sam pulled the blanket up over them before slipping out the door and back downstairs.

 

Sam found himself stretched out on a blanket, in a field of grass and flower. There was a picnic basket right by his nose, and he could smell the wonderful wakeful smell of coffee.

"A samovar? Really?" he heard Gabriel above him.

"I like the Rus," replied Yuri Koltsemirov in his liquid voice.

"Uh-huh," the archangel said in flat disbelief. He shifted then and asked, "Sammy? Is that you?"

Sam opened his eyes to look up at Gabriel, and yawned. When Gabriel picked him up and held him out in the air, Sam hissed and struggled. He didn't like dangling like that.

"You have to support him," Yuri said. "Otherwise you're going to drop him."

"I know that. I'm not entirely stupid, you know," Gabriel snapped, and tucked Sam against his shoulder. Sam took the opportunity to bat at the garland of mistletoe and lily sitting on the archangel's head.

"Stupid? .. like turning human souls into... what are they? Exactly?"

"I don't know. Not demons."

"I can see they're not demons. They're not tormented and twisted – they're pure, almost refined." Sam saw the glare Yuri shot Gabriel. "Have you been practicing alchemy, old man?"

"Uhm... maybe?"

Yuri rolled his eyes. "Alchemical soul transformation, interfering with destiny, raising people from the Inferno? What will you do for an encore? Found another religion?"

"You making it sound like a planned all that."

"I know you, old man. You don't plan a thing. You haven't the brains to."

"HEY!"

Yuri smiled at Gabriel's outrage, and plucked Sam off his shoulder. "You're just a baby, aren't you? Look at you, with down on your wings, spots on your back, and no mane yet."

Sam wriggled until the man put him down, and tried to get to the smell of coffee in the strange urn. That was when the clockwork raven landed in front of him and cawed. Sam tried to worm past it, but it spread its wings and cawed again.

"You're too little for coffee, right now, Sam," Gabriel said, scooping him up and dumping him back on the picnic blanket. Turning to Yuri, he asked, "Why is there coffee in the pot, anyway?"

"It is Sam's dream. He misses coffee," came Hrafn's voice from the raven, croaking out of a mouth of gears and bronze. "You should know that, eagle-chieftain."

"No comments from the peanut gallery," Gabriel huffed.

The raven threw its wings wide, laughing and laughing. Sam darted forward, fascinated by the green-brown metal of the feathers, and tried to bat at them. Instead, Sam was swept up in hands articulated of pipe and wire and worm screws, as Hrafn shifted from bird shape to man shape, and then from metal to flesh. Sam wound up in Hrafn's lap, half covered by the square cloak pinned off Hrafn's right shoulder, laying against the scabbard handing horizontal off Hrafn's belt.

Hrafn patted Sam on the head, taking special care to scratch Sam's ears, which made Sam rumble out a purr.

"Hello, Hrafn Friththjófsson."

"It is good to see you, luminous one."

"It's not like I never visited," Gabriel pouted.

"Just infrequently and never with notice," Yuri said.

Hrafn laughed again, and pushed Sam away from trying to chew on his hair, which wasn't braided for once, but wrapped and pinned up around his head in knots and twists. It was his weirdest hairstyle yet, but it went with the rough tunic, trousers, and homemade shoes in a way that just fit. He smelled faintly of horse, and smoke, and something unfamiliar that Sam suspected might be sheep. Sam tried climbing his arm, curious enough to bat at the knotted hair Hrafn was sporting, but the man gave him a sly look, and dumped Sam on his back, rubbing Sam's belly in a way that had Sam wriggling away even as he flapped his wings.

"Are you going to bring out all my failures?" Gabriel asked.

"Please do not," Hrafn interjected. "We do not have years."

Yuri laughed, and said, "No, we don't. But you, old man, I want to know why you're lingering in one little town in the middle of nowhere. I felt Hrafn gothi's petition, and was surprised by it, but I never expected to find you lingering. So why are you?"

Gabriel frowned, and Sam watching felt sorry for him. He squirmed out of Hrafn's hands, and scrambled to where Gabriel sat, looking much smaller and sadder than an archangel should. Sam nudged his head under Gabriel's chin, and purred at him.

"He doesn't have the strength to leave," Hrafn said, and Sam drew back at that in surprise. He made an inquiring sound, and Gabriel sighed even as he scratched Sam's ears.

"I'm a little worn out just now, yeah."

"I am awake, truly awake and walking the world, eagle-chieftain. Not roused to help you design a trick, or to help you confuse a godly rival, but awake and walking," Hrafn said sternly. "You are not just a little worn."

Sam could see the frown cloud Yuri's features, and ducked down, into the layers of Gabriel's wings, folded around him like cloaks, like coats made of fog and light. He huddled against Gabriel's side.

"Sammy... stop that."

"Are you dying, old man?"

Gabriel snorted at that, a bitterly amused rumble that shook Sam where he was pressed against Gabriel's side. "I was dead. Lucifer killed me with my own sword – but next thing I know, I'm alive again and already diving into Hell."

"And you pulled out Sam Winchester..." Yuri said leadingly.

"And his brother, the poor bastard that Michael was wearing. I got them to safety, up into the world and out to a safe place for the Winchesters..."

"And then you passed out," Hrafn added.

"I did not!"

"Who woke up to Sam and his brother and their host Bobby frowning at him? I believe that would be me, angel," Hrafn said.

"You are weak, old man," Yuri said.

"I'd have been all right in a few more days–"

"It had been weeks–" Hrafn interrupted.

"But some humans decided setting off atomic bombs would be more fun."

Yuri sipped from his coffee cup, and asked, "You are an archangel. The bombs killed many humans, millions of them, yes. But how did such weapons affect you?"

Sam tilted his head. He wanted to know too. He couldn't figure out how nuclear bombs had hurt an archangel. It wasn't like Gabriel was something that could die of radiation poisoning, or even a direct hit.

Gabriel looked away and shrugged, shoulders and wings rising and falling in a sad wave. "I don't know, Jori. I was getting better, but all that death, it was almost as bad as getting stabbed again. There was just too much of it, all at once." Gabriel turned back to look at the other man and asked, "Didn't you feel it?"

"Yes, of course I did. I even felt some of the pagans feasting – the ones who eat violent death, or deaths from fire, they have grown fat from that."

Gabriel ran a hand over his eyes. "Oh great. Thor."

"The Thunderer is honorable, eagle-chieftain..."

"He might be my friend, but he's also a lunatic and a lummox. And his sacrifices are by blade or flame..."

"He's not the one to worry about," Yuri said.

"What?" Gabriel's head snapped up, and Sam looked up from where he'd been nibbling on one of Gabriel's shiny, glowing feathers and meeped in confusion

"There are gods moving now that haven't had a feast in centuries. Tattered things that ate the scraps of witch burnings and arsons – they've had a feast of fire. They'll be looking to establish themselves again."

"I may be weak, but I can still deal with diminished gods..." Gabriel growled.

"But can Vali?"

Gabriel stiffened, his wings fanning above him. Sam yelped, and scrambled away to hide by Hrafn. The Norseman's cloak looked safer than Gabriel's side, all of the sudden.

"What do you know about Vali?" the archangel rasped out.

"I saw him in the town square. Congratulations on hiding him so well – I could barely feel his divinity even when he was close enough touch. He didn't recognize me." Yuri sighed, and frowned at Gabriel. "Does he have any idea who he is?"

"No. No, and don't you say anything!"

"He should–"

"Don't say anything to Vali! He'd come apart again!"

"Old man, what have you been doing with that boy?"

"Protecting him! I'll always protect him."

"Because you failed all your other sons..."

Gabriel looked stricken. Sam whined, and took a step away from Hrafn's side, to go comfort the archangel, but Hrafn caught him around the middle and tapped him on the nose. "This is turning private and painful. Time to wake up, Sam."

Sam gasped, his eyes flying open. He was still by Hrafn's side, but in their room and bed, his arm flopped over Hrafn's lap. The Norseman had his hands in Sam's hair, petting his head and looking sad.

"What the hell, Hrafn?"

"They need to talk, and we did not need to be witnesses."

"You pushed me out of there! Why did you do that?! Gabriel was going to explain! He never explains! He just spins lies and gibberish!

"He is the Liesmith, Sam."

"Hrafn!"

Hrafn rolled his eyes. "Because even Gabriel deserves to have his dignity – no matter that he tosses it away like trash much of the time."

Sam glared. "I wanted answers."

"You'll have to wait."

"Crap. I hate waiting."

"I know," Hrafn said, and closed his eyes.

Sam stared at him in disgust, then gave in and lay back down. He had to work in the morning, and as much as he'd like to stay up arguing, he couldn't. Damnit.

 

Hrafn woke to the clawed gouges in his side aching, and fingers digging into his sore muscles rhythmically. He blinked bleary eyes to see Sam lying against the pillow, his eyes soft with concern.

"Still hurts?"

Hrafn nodded. Even Sam's efforts at soothing and distracting him weren't helping against the aching and the itching. Even Gabriel's efforts weren't helping, and he knew his angel was pushing his body to knit together faster than it should, was damping down the soreness than had settled between his bones.

"Want another pill?" Sam asked, and turned away, reaching for the jar beside the bed, and the cup and pitcher.

Hrafn sighed, and let Sam give him another pill. He had to let Sam help him drink, because his hands were so sore that he had trouble holding the cup. He was so tired of being hurt.

And Gabriel was no help. His angel had gone quiet, gone inward, focusing on healing their body, and sparing little energy to talk to Hrafn. It was almost like being alone, with Gabriel so distracted, and Hrafn disliked it severely.

He fell back against the pillows as Sam put the cup back in its place and stared up at the ceiling in frustration. The medicine worked, he could feel it creeping through his flesh, rubbing the pain away like a mother rubbing smudges off her child's cheeks, but the lack of pain just meant he felt his frustration and loneliness more.

"Better?" Sam asked as he turned back to pull the blankets back up over them both.

"The pain is gone," Hrafn admitted. He raised a listless hand, and gestured, "but..."

"It's frustrating being hurt, I know." Sam said.

"Very..."

"You're a lot better as a patient than I expected," Sam said.

Hrafn turned to frown at him. "What did you expect?"

"Oh, something like my brother... trying to work through the pain. Never letting it stop you, that sort of thing."

"Do I look stupid?"

Sam laughed at that, and pressed his cheek against Hrafn's shoulder. "No. No, you don't. You... sometimes you remind me of Dean, but you're a lot more sensible than he is... and..."

"And?"

"You're calm. Dean was always emotional, kind of explosive. Happy, angry, sad, it was always melodramatic with him. You're calm, like … a pool, or the ocean. Peaceful, and deep. I could curl up in your calm."

"That's kind..." Hrafn said dubiously. He remembered the ocean, the furious winter storms and the way it tossed whales and seals up. Perhaps Sam, having grown up in this land of shallow streams and few rivers, thought an ocean was like a pond, smooth and still...

Sam grinned, and nudged Hrafn's shoulder. "Not a good analogy, huh?"

"Oceans are dangerous," Hrafn said.

"Yeah," Sam said. "And deceptive." He reached out his hand, and stroked at a tendril of hair escaping down Hrafn's cheek. "It fits. Calm and deep and dangerous, but really just..." Sam stopped.

"Sam..." Hrafn breathed, shifting to press up against Sam's hand where it played with his hair.

"Yeah, that's good," Sam breathed. "Can I... you up for this?"

"Whatever you want," Hrafn murmured, pressing back as Sam's fingers worked into his scalp.

Sam chuckled. "Hrafn, stop giving me blanket permission. You don't know what I'll do."

Hrafn snuggled down into the bed, working a little closer to Sam and his large hands and his warm chest and the feeling of togetherness that stirred in Hrafn's chest.

"You're kind, Sam. I trust you."

"Aw, crap, Hrafn," Sam sighed, and leaned forward, pressing Hrafn on his back to kiss him. Sam's mouth was warm and soft and he drew the kissing out, slow and delightful even as his hands came up, stroking carefully over Hrafn's chest, avoiding the tender healing scars even as he touched everywhere else.

Hrafn squirmed and broke into giggles when Sam made a frustrated noise and yanked on the waist of his pajama trousers. Sam was so impatient sometimes, though Hrafn made appreciative sounds as Sam kept kissing him even as he wrapped his big hand around Hrafn's cock.

"I want..." Sam stopped, and pulled away, his face twisting for a moment into an embarrassed grimace. He shifted, and rearranged his hands nervously. "Will you let me fuck your mouth?" Sam blurted, and then glanced away.

"That's all?" Hrafn said. From the way Sam had fidgeted, Hrafn had thought he had wanted something more vicious, more embarrassing. Hrafn didn't mind playing the soft cat for Sam; after all, he was one, and Sam asked very little most of the time. Hands, usually, and tongue, and sometimes fucking between his thighs. But Sam had taken to Hrafn's limits, that he'd only truly play a woman for the gods, now that he had regained some of his manliness, with much grace, and no spoken complaint, so if Sam wanted to be a little more forceful that usual, Hrafn thought he could oblige.

"'That's all'–? Hrafn, I..." Sam cut himself off, shook his head, and leaned over to kiss Hrafn again. His hands were warm where they stroked over Hrafn's sides and down, careful over his tender scars and forceful everywhere else.

Hrafn hissed at Sam's hand on his cock, at the way his bedmate used his size to engulf and twist. He shifted and panted as Sam pulled them both into arousal, making their cocks stand and touch together. Sam liked it best when Hrafn was visibly flushed and hard, before they went further. He liked, as far as Hrafn could tell, to see his bedmates flushed and wanting before he pursued his own satisfaction.

Which was why Hrafn was flushed red, sweating and with a prick that was uncovered and aching when Sam finally moved. He pulled Hrafn up by the shoulders, positioning him the way he wanted – not that Hrafn minded, but Sam tended to fuss, and seemed to think Hrafn was weaker than he was – before he moved himself to kneel up, one knee bent, one foot on the floor.

Hrafn sighed as Sam curled one hand around his head, fingers brushing his nape even as the pad of Sam's head pushed his jaw up. It was gentle pressure, steady but sure, moving him to what Sam thought was a good position. Hrafn glanced up, and saw the pure and inward concentration on Sam's face, and smiled ruefully for a moment.

Then Sam's cock was brushing his lips, and he licked out, his tongue flicking over the head before retreating as Sam twitched forward. He used his hand to guide Sam, gripping firmly around Sam's shaft to keep him from thrusting too hard while he was working at taking Sam's cockhead in. He didn't want to vomit from an ill-timed, too-deep thrust, after all.

He was careful, shielding his teeth with his lips, barely letting them scrape, just enough that Sam grunted and twisted his hips. Mostly he pressed with his tongue, and sucked, and occasionally glanced up to judge Sam's state.

Sam groaned, and sighed, and thrust very very gently, until Hrafn pulled back, shook off Sam's hand, and asked, "I thought you wanted my mouth to fuck, Sam."

Sam shivered at that, and grimace in that embarrassed, angry way that Hrafn found amusing as a pup's. "You– just you– Damnit!" Sam growled, and moved back long enough to regroup, and leaned down to kiss Hrafn breathless.

Then he climbed back into the bed, this time straddling Hrafn's body, pushing him up against the pillows.

"This. I want this," Sam said, and used his thumb to push open Hrafn's mouth again, used his weight to pin Hrafn across the shoulders as he fed Hrafn his cock. Hrafn opened for Sam willingly, awkward angle though it was, and allowed Sam to control him with a hand against his jaw as Sam shoved into his mouth.

The way Sam growled and grunted, and the sharp shallow thrusts of cock against his lips and tongue was good. Not easy, not even simple, exactly, but cherished because they were difficult and desired and Hrafn could do this for Sam very well. He hollowed his cheeks, flicked his tongue, used his teeth and lips and the tilt of his jaw to make Sam gasp and grunt and grip.

Hrafn was breathing hard, one hand bruisingly tight where it gripped Sam's thigh, the other tangled in Sam's big hand when Sam began to stutter in his thrust, becoming harder, erratic, his control eroding as his orgasm welled up.

Soon he snarled, and his hips thrust hard once, twice and sputtered. Hrafn swallowed hurriedly, trying to get past Sam's emission before the taste hit, and almost gagged when Sam's last thrust hammered at just the wrong moment.

He pulled away, or tried to, and got tightening fingers against his neck, before Sam realized what he was doing, and released him. He panted, glancing away, as Sam eased himself to the side, no longer straddling Hrafn.

"You... okay?" Sam asked, a little breathless.

Hrafn nodded, and licked his lips. The taste lingered in his mouth, and while Sam's cock was clean and nothing to object to, the salty fluid of Sam's release was not something he particularly enjoyed.

"Water?" Sam asked, and when Hrafn nodded, reached out of bed to pour Hrafn a cup. He had to hold it while Hrafn drank, as Hrafn was still breathing like a bellows, and wriggle a jaw suddenly sore.

"Was it too much?" Sam asked, after Hrafn had gulped down two cupfuls.

Hrafn glanced at Sam in surprise, and snorted. "No, Sam. Don't look like that. I'm just... out of practice, I suppose."

"Oh. Good. I'm glad," Sam said, and tipped his chin up to kiss him again, very gently and sweet.

 

Kissing Hrafn soothed Sam down from his twitchy skin and heaving lungs. The other man soaked up affection like a particularly needy sponge, and Sam got to nuzzle and cuddle without abandon. After what he had done, after pushing Hrafn's chin up and fucking into his mouth until the other man had gagged, the fact that Hrafn allowed Sam, wanted Sam to kiss him was a balm to Sam's worries.

He pulled Hrafn close, settling down against the piled pillows, and running his hand lightly down the man's chest, with its new and old scars, and over his shoulders with the head of the lion tattoo peeking around his shoulder. Hrafn smiled at him, and arched into the touch. Sam traced Hrafn's collarbones, and tugged at the smattering of dark and light hairs – Hrafn barely had any gray on his head, but his body showed how old he'd been before Gabriel had come, how he'd been reaching the end of his life in that brutal and brief time before the angel.

"Sam..." Hrafn murmured, not quite a complaint, as Sam let his hand drift lower, over the little bit of fat Hrafn still had left, even though they'd all been wanting this past winter. It was, Sam thought, just a tiny bit sexy, the softness of his belly, the gentle way it gave under Sam's fingers.

Sam pushed down further with his hand, teasing above Hrafn's cock. His lover's hiss of frustration and aborted upward thrust made Sam chuckle, and press harder, teasing more.

"Sam..." Hrafn murmured again, a little growling seeping into his voice.

"You lie back," Sam said, and swung himself to sit up and push Hrafn back against the headboard of the bed, almost pinned between the pillows and Sam's bulk.

"'m falling asleep, Sam," Hrafn said, and proved it with a yarn.

"Don't," Sam told him. He flipped his hand into a better position, and ran his fingers over the line of Hrafn's cock, down to cup the other man's balls.

Hrafn gasped at the squeeze Sam gave his testicles, and whimpered at the slow tugging as Sam stroked them. Sam smirked, feeling mischievous as his hand brushed against Hrafn's cock. He was teasing deliberately, hands just occasionally going where Hrafn wanted them most.

"Sam...please..." Hrafn gasped.

"Well, since you asked nicely," Sam teased, and bent over Hrafn's uninjured side, heavy enough against the man that he couldn't move away easily. He breathed deeply and then flicked his tongue out, brushing just against the tip of Hrafn's cock. Sam smiled and drew back when Hrafn gasped, turning to look at his lover's face.

Hrafn was flushed, and sweaty, and looked halfway to asleep and all the way to falling over, when Sam rearranged his plans for the evening by sliding down the bed and gripping his cock tight again. Sam paused for a moment even as Hrafn whined and tried to squirm in some direction, either forward or backward.

He did shut up when Sam licked out on Hrafn's cock again, just a gentle alien touch against him. Hrafn did tend to shut up and whimper when blowjobs were on the table. It could even get him to pay attention, and Sam didn't feel bad about using it against the man.

So Sam waited for Hrafn to recover a little, and then pinched and tweaked at his foreskin, pulling that strange bit of flesh that slid round Hrafn's cock and its bright, ferocious owner.

Sam laughed, and leaned up to kiss Hrafn again, which Hrafn allowed with a sleepy-eyed glare but it got him to lay back down.

Sam kissed down Hrafn's body again, careful of the wrenched muscles and tender scars where a tiger had tried to swipe Hrafn away from them all. It had been Gabriel's intervention and Gabriel's sword that had stopped that – and for all the trouble and pain, it was Gabriel who was healing Hrafn far faster and better than a human could normal.

So when Sam put his mouth down on Hrafn's shaft, he had one hand petting Hrafn's injured side, telling him he was cherished and good, and one hand under Hrafn's hips, stroking his ass and telling him he was filthy and delightful. It was, Sam admitted to himself as he licked around the head of Hrafn's rather nicely proportionate cock.

It didn't take long, though Sam was a little surprised at how fast Hrafn went under his attention. The other man breathed deeply one, twice, four time in and all, and made a strangled whining groan even as he tried to push Sam off. Sam was having none of it – he wanted to feel Hrafn's orgasm, to taste it, to ride out the shudders that had Hrafn's hands tugging on his hair and his hips bucking up from the vise of Sam's arms and elbows and much heavier weight.

"Oh... Sam..." Hrafn murmured.

"Good, huh?" Sam grinned, and crawled back up the bed, to flop at Hrafn's side, and rest his chin on the other man's shoulder.

"Yes, Sam," Hrafn said, and yawned. He closed his tawny eyes, and Sam saw the moment he fell asleep, his face going from satiated to slack in a blink. Sam sighed – even though he knew Hrafn had no stamina, even with the long naps and light work – because he had wanted the cuddling and the quite talking that Hrafn sometimes obliged him with after sex.

"No chance of that now," Sam mumbled to himself, and tried to settle in for a snooze.

Hrafn shifted under him, and opened his eyes – silver eyes, not tawny, silver from lid to lid, in the weak candlelight.

"Gabriel?" Sam gasped. It couldn't be anything else – Hrafn's eyes were silver and Sam could see faint traceries stirring behind him, off the far edge of the bed, twisting and beating lines of light.

'Hey, Sam,' the angel said.

"Is... Hrafn's okay?"

'Yeah. Just asleep. You wore him out.' Gabriel smiled, and blinked his silver eyes.

"How are you—?"

'I may be too weak to drive, but Hrafn's passed out behind the wheel, so to speak.'

"How can I see you?" Sam asked, and touched Gabriel on the cheek, tilting his chin up the way he had with Hrafn. Except this wasn't for sex, this was so Sam could look into those impossible silver eyes, that were deeper inside than they should be.

'… I think I screwed up.'

"What? What do you mean?"

'When I was remade, I was already diving into Hell. You don't remember that – I stuffed most of your memories about Hell behind a wall—-'

"I remember Hell, Gabriel. Adam and me, we fell … forever, it felt like."

Gabriel looked so sad, his shining eyes dimming. 'No, Sam, you don't. There's a lot I hid from you. A lot I had to hide from you...'

Sam sat up, and loomed over the archangel. "You messed with my memories?"

'You were in Hell, Sam. You were alive and in Hell. It was a horror – wrong in ways that no human language has words for.'

Sam stared down at Gabriel, who looked small and vulnerable in Hrafn's body, even though Sam knew how vast the true form of an archangel was. He was a Vessel, Lucifer's True Vessel; he'd seen the fallen archangel in his ruined glory, twisted, folded, compressed in upon himself as Lucifer had abandoned the body he'd been using (a blond man name Nick, Sam knew that, accompanied by the faded burn of tears) and took Sam's. Afterward, it had been a house of mirrors and brief confusing glimpses out of his own eyes, and always the cold burn of Lucifer.

"You...okay, if it was so bad, and you got me out, what did you screw up?"

Gabriel smiled sweetly and reached up to tap Sam on the forehead.

"Holy..." Sam had to grab the headboard.

Gabriel moved to sit beside him, with the rustling of hundreds of gossamer wings, folded over and over each other. He looked nothing like Hrafn now, all blue-silver and sleek. There were shapes around him, like flowers or stars, and they flipped kaleidoscopically when Sam settled back.

Sam stared down at his own hands, and felt his gorge rise, as he saw through his hands to the muscles and bones beneath, and then further, to the folds of atoms and it was too much. He looked away, out the window, but then it was the home orchard, and the trees and sap running up and nutrients running down and he was off balance and nauseated.

Gabriel tapped his forehead again.

"What was that?!" Sam panted.

'I screwed up, and you can see too far. Lucifer had you molded and shaped for him, and never intended to let you go. All the places humans don't look into, can't look into, you could see them now, if I hadn't put up walls.'

"Like a psychic..?"

'Exactly like psychic except in every specific way,' Gabriel said.

"That's not helpful."

'I don't think you're quite human anymore.'

"Gabriel, I haven't been 'quite human' since I was six month old. Castiel calls me an abomination to me face."

'Well, technically, you are an abomination unto God.'

"Thanks. That's what I need to hear."

'...Maybe. You're not one of the Nephillim, and you're not a demon. It's more like if you turned those concepts inside out and backwards.'

"I'm an anti-demon?"

'No. Not yet.'

"But I might become... Hrafn?" Sam asked.

'I've had him for over two thousand years, Sam.'

Sam swallowed, fighting down his emotions. "I thought he was human..."

'He was, centuries ago. But I burn, Sam. I'm an archangel and burn. Put a little human soul next to me for long enough, and all the slag falls away.'

Sam swallowed again, and closed his eyes. He felt Gabriel's hand come up, stroking his hair, and then something soft and bristly drag over his back. He opened his eyes, and saw the faint traceries around Gabriel bending forward to fold around him. "Your wings... those are your wings..."

'Yeah.'

"Okay. Okay. You said this was a mistake. Why? What did you do wrong?"

'I've made you and Hrafn into something new. I Created.'

Sam blinked. "And that's bad because..."

'Father is the Creator. I'm His Herald and His Judgment, His Voice and his Scourge.'

"You think you, what, usurped God's place?" Sam blinked, and stared at Gabriel, appalled. "You think you usurped God? Also, 'Scourge'!?"

'Lucifer Created when he corrupted human souls into demons—'

"Lucifer was doing it to get back at God," Sam argued. "You weren't. Also... 'Scourge'?"

'I sat at my Father's left hand, Sam, not his right. Michael was my Father's Sword, the defender of mankind, who cast down Lucifer and all the rebel angels. But when the Nephillim were raised up and proved soulless and implacable, my Father sent me among them, to turn on them against one another. When mankind grew wicked, He sent me to stir the waters over the earth, and with Uriel I burnt Sodom for their selfishness, their pride, and their lack of charity on His orders. When Pharaoh's heart was hardened by the Ennead, He sent me to kill the Firstborn of Egypt..."

Sam stared at Gabriel.

'Sam?'

"Did God ever send you do something that wasn't mass-murder?" Sam bit out.

'I carried my Father's words to Abraham, to Daniel, to Tamar, to Elizabeth and Mary, even to Muhammad, though I had left Heaven by then.'

"All that service, you and the other angels. He just left you to flounder after that?

'We had the prophecies...'

"And a deadbeat dad. And I thought my Dad was a jerk."

'Sam...'

"Seriously, Gabriel," Sam began, "I used to believe that your Father cared about people, that He was good and kind and merciful and all that, but what the fuck? What kind of God sets an Apocalypse in motion? I mean, what the fuck?! Really?" Sam threw his hands wide in frustration, "That's who I was praying to all those years? The God who lets the world be dragged into the crapper because he's run off to Tahiti or wherever? That's the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God I've told about all my life? Really?!"

Gabriel was curled up, hugging himself and looking bleak, with tears in his eyes. 'He's still my Father, Sam.'

"Oh," Sam quietly, ashamed of his ranting. "Oh, I'm sorry, Gabriel. But he is a shitty Dad. To everyone, angels and humans."

Gabriel snorted, a pained little sound.

"Yeah, I'm hilarious." Sam said, and laid himself back down, drawing the angel close.

'You're a good man, Sam Winchester.'

"Well, I want to be, anyway," Sam said, and closed his eyes, tucking Gabriel up against him and trying to sleep. Maybe things would look better in the morning. Maybe Hrafn would wake up and put it all into perspective with calm words – Hrafn was so calm, so balanced. Sam loved him for that, and thought maybe Gabriel did too.

 

Part Six: a voice on the wind, and the wages of sin

Hrafn had Fenja and Menja moving cattle from one pasture to another. He whistled the dogs through the gate, then dismounted to close it, admiring again the ingenious twisted wire and posts that made up the fence line. Such an wonderful invention of the later day, and so useful in this land of few trees.

Fífilla snorted, and stamped her hoof suddenly, pricking up her ears and raising her tail in alarm. Hrafn looked off in the direction the mare was snorting at. There was nothing visible in the wide open pasture, but he felt the strangeness in the air.

'Asvald, do you feel that? What lurks there, in the north?' he asked his angel.

He felt his angel shift in his chest, like a bear disturbed in its long winter's sleep.

'Dunno. Feels like... happiness.'

'Happiness?'

'Happiness. Warmth. Fuzzy. I like it.'

Hrafn rolled his eyes. The angel would be no help, obviously, so he led Fífilla out through the dirt road between the pastures. He did not mount, as he had no block to mount from, and his ribs were still too tender to pull himself into the saddle from the ground with great need. He angled the mare to follow the feeling he was getting from the distance. Fenja and Menja would be fine with their herd for a while, and frankly, were happiest when Hrafn let them mother and boss the cows anyway.

He handwalked his mare down to the far end of the property, still feeling that strangeness in north. Fífilla did not like it, snorting every few moments, and shaking her dandelion yellow head.

She snorted at the property-line and refused to budge, so Hrafn ground-tied her and left her there. Anything that could frighten one of his horses was probably dangerous, and had to be investigated, but he wouldn't take an animal that would spook with him.

He stripped her of her saddle, though, and pulled his rifle out of its scabbard. He would have liked to take his bow as well, but the rifle was a better weapon if there were people or monsters to kill. It had better range, hit harder, and could be shot as fast as he could pull the trigger. And he was a decent enough shooter, now, with Sam's training.

He slipped under and through the railed fence and over the property borders. The far side of the fence was rippling winter wheat, brown and sleeping under the scrim of late snow. Hrafn tried not to trample it too badly as he walked towards the strangeness, tired from his work but not willing to ignore the feeling.

As he crested one of the slight hills that rolled over the local area, Hrafn sniffed the air.

'Hey,' his angel drawled, 'that's chocolate!'

'Yes,' Hrafn replied with a smile, 'it is.' He liked chocolate, the drink dark and bitter and sweet all at once, and best with the bite of chilies and salt against its dark sweetness. And of course, his angel was as bad as drunkard when it came to dainties.

He stepped forward.

Smoke, crisp and sharp with scent of burning grass, made Hrafn stiffen, and then hurry his pace, hands tightening on the strap of his rifle.

The sight he confronted in the little hollow of a creek drew him up short.

Men and women, beautiful with toasted skin, dark hair, and friendly, liquid eyes stared up at him from their campfire. There was spitted meat roasting, and a pot smelling of chocolate on the fire.

"Loki!" one of the men cried, and then Hrafn could see the divinity beneath his skin. He wasn't a very great god, with his uncanny nature so close to his skin, but he was obvious when you knew where to look. Not like Vali at all, whose divinity was well hidden and well forgotten.

Hrafn took a breath to respond, but didn't. Instead, Gabriel surged out from under his heart and filled him up, until there was no room for him and he folded up inside his own skin. He could see what his angel saw – the button noses, soft fur, and long ears of their hosts, for example – but Hrafn didn't find the expanded perception any real consolation. He had no control; Gabriel had the bit in his teeth, and would run wild until he fell over again. Blast it...

"Tepoztecatl," Gabriel said with Hrafn's voice, and smiled with Hrafn's mouth, twisting his face into a happy grin.

"Ha!" the god said, "You old menace! Are you here to feast with us? Have some pulque. Quick, bring pulque for our old friend Loki Laufeyarson!"

Hrafn rustled under his own skin, disgruntled with his angel's quick acceptance of the offered drink. Gabriel downed the cup of milky liquor with an unbecoming swiftness – it wasn't like Hrafn hadn't been imbibing, but he didn't like the slightly viscous drink, while Gabriel obviously still did.

"What are you doing here, Tepoztecatl?!" Gabriel said. "Kansas is a bit far north for the Four Hundred Rabbits."

Tepoztecatl shrugged his shoulders and said, "It's the place to be, now. Humans are killing themselves, and a clever god can feast here."

Gabriel raised Hrafn's eyebrows and cocked his head. "Eating humans? You're better than that, Tepoztecatl. You're pulque and parties and barbecues out in the desserts."

"It's hard days, old friend. You Tricksters might be all right, but the rest of us are hungry. And the humans are in chaos –"

"It's not the Rabbits' style, though. Barbecue, sure, but eating humans?"

"We've been starving, Loki. Tlaloc has promised–"

"Gator-face?! You're listening to him?!"

"He is our ally."

"He's the reason humans don't believe in you anymore. Him, and Tezcatlipoca, and Xipe Totec, and all those other lunatics. If they'd just lead quiet lives, instead of asking your humans to slaughter everything and everyone who got in the way, they wouldn't have deserted you for the Christian God."

"This is an old argument, Loki."

"Doesn't mean I'm not right!"

Tepoztecatl slumped, and waved a hand in the air. "It doesn't matter. Tlatloc has found a lost child – some abandoned bastard that he will eat and grow strong on. With that death, he says he can found us a new home, a new Teōtīhuacān."

Hrafn felt ice shoot through his body, as Gabriel stiffened.

"No, he fucking can't!"

"Loki?!"

"Tepoztecatl, you tell that goggle-eyed bastard that this is my territory, and the humans here are under my protection. And that 'lost child' is mine."

The pulque god frowned, his face growing hard. "You are an old friend, Loki, but this is our survival–"

"It's Vali, damnit! You aren't going to kill my son!"

That drew Tepoztecatl up short, and his long ears flopped down in distress. "Oh. Your son. I'm sorry, Loki."

"You should b–"

Hrafn rocked as the pulque god punched Gabriel – his body! – in the throat. He fell, and was barely able to stare up at Tepoztecatl in confusion.

"I'm sorry, Loki," the divine rabbit said. "But it's our survival. If only you hadn't come."

And then he kicked Gabriel in the face, and Hrafn went away with the blow.

 

Bill didn't like that they couldn't find Hrafn Friththjófsson, even though his horse was found on the Richmond farm. Scouring the pastures and the fields proved no good, even though the light was still high when the Rangers started looking, and you could see forever across the open farmland, except when the windbreaks of trees screened a field or pasture from the road. But if Friththjófsson had somehow tossed up under the trees or in a creek, well people were searching there, too, so why couldn't they find one lone farmhand who had no habit of running off – though he did have a habit of falling into trouble, taking on tree thieves and tigers and who knows what else.

Maybe he'd stumbled on something that he couldn't win against this time?

Bill dismounted but kept walking Slipper over the fields, peering into the fast fading light. There was just something that niggled at him, that kept him thinking if he went just a little further, he'd find the missing man.

"This is no good, is it, Slipper? There's no way we'll find him tonight?" He patted the horse's neck, and made to turn back before the twilight faded entirely and he broke Slipper's legs by walking the horse through the fields in the dark.

"On that horse, mortal, you should be able to find any road you need. The best of all horses rides anywhere, from the halls of the Aes down to the homes of the fire-giants and the cold realm of Hel herself. How came you by Odin's darling?"

Bill jerked, causing Slipper to shy and sidestep.

There was a man frowning at him – big burly guy, dressed in boots and flannel and a broad floppy hat. Bill glared at him because where had he come from? There was no place for him to have been, the nearest trees were 200 yards away. And his clothes were wrong – too clean, too new.

"He's a lease," Bill said, and patted Slipper's neck. "Mind telling me who you are, sir?"

The man frowned at Bill.

"Call me … Járnskór."

"Ironshoe?" Bill frowned at the man.

"You are educated, for a mortal."

"He is not a mortal at all, Vidar," came a rumbling smoky voice.

Bill turned to stare at a Hispanic man with dark hair and eyes that were strangely bright, even in the fading light.

"Oh no, no, he's not," came a woman's voice from his other side, and Bill spun to look at this new threat.

He knew her. He knew her – she was as beautiful as the sun and the moon, but she wasn't nice. His mother had told him, told him and his brother both (Bill didn't have a brother) never to trust her, never to trust beautiful, cold Freyja, because she was Vanir and hostage and would not keep true.

"Why, Vidar, Tezcatlipoca, it's one of Sigyn's little brats! The one that isn't dead! What are you doing here, boy? Hmm, what was your name... Valtham? Vari? Ah, Vali, that was it..." the woman purred.

"I have to go," Bill murmured, more to himself than to them, with their cool hungry faces, and tried to back away.

"No, no, you must stay. Tlaloc has been looking for you," the dark one said, his voice liquid and as dangerous as a panther.

"No. I'm going." Bill said, and took another step away.

"You are not, Vali. Will you or nill you, you are not leaving," the woman – Freyja! screamed a wiser part of himself – said, and gestured to the men she was with.

All Bill could think was 'not again' as the big guy hit him in the face. He hissed and stumbled and tried to get his gun, but someone ground his hand under their heel, and someone else – different angle, he could tell because the blow came from a different angle – kicked him in the kidneys. After that, it was all a blur of light and shocks, and his horse screaming angrily, until Bill went away into the dark.

 

"He's no kin of mine," was the first thing Bill heard that made sense. "Do what you want to him."

Bill blinked at that, and coughed, feeling the slicker than normal sensation of a bloody mouth. He shifted, trying to find all the part of himself, and found he couldn't move his arms much – he blinked hard, trying to clear his eyes, and was really unhappy to finally see that he was bound like a rodeo calf, rope in heavy coils from wrist to mid-forearm and staked to the ground.

Knocked out and tied up again, though at least this time he hadn't been stuffed in the trunk of his own patrol car. Instead, it looked like he was in a barn or maybe an old farrowing shed. The structure was poorly lit, and had that musty smell of disuse.

There was the crunch of footsteps, and then a hand gripped his shoulder and rolled Bill onto his back. He managed to yelp, instead of shriek even though it shot pain up into his shoulders, as the sharp fingers turned him over and he looked up into the face of one of his captors.

"What the fuck are you?" Bill gasped.

The thing... it wasn't a person, even though it stood upright on two feet and hands – long, spidery fingers that were tipped with claws – and was kind of person shaped. It smiled with a mouth too full of teeth for a person, crinkled goggle eyes straight off of one of Linh's toy dragons.

"Tlaloc," the thing said, in a voice that gurgled. It stretched out one of its too long fingers, and scraped a claw down Bill's cheek, so sharp and slow that Bill didn't realize it had cut him until he felt the blood trickling down his skin like tears.

It pulled back its hand and licked the blood off its claws with a tongue that was black and doglike. "You are not a parent yet," it said with satisfaction. "Still a child, then."

Bill snarled at the thing. "I've got a family."

"The girl isn't yours. Not your blood. So you are still a child. You are still fit for me."

"Keep your claws to yourself, gator-face," a ragged voice said from behind Bill.

The thing laughed.

Bill turned his head, peering to see the source of the voice.

"Hrafn?!" he asked. The missing farmhand was splayed out along a far wall, his hands cuffed and chained to posts above his head. He looked almost as bad as Bill felt, with blood crusting his braided hair and both his eyes bruised into a raccoon mask.

"No. Hrafn's not here right now, but if you'd like to leave a message, I'm sure he'll get back to you," the man replied, his English entirely without Hrafn's thick and occasionally hilariously incomprehensible accent.

"Loki's little bird mask has flown away and left him," gurgled the monster looming over Bill. "Left him here for us, all bound and helpless..."

"I can still take you, you goggle-eyed abomination," the man who wasn't Hrafn said. "Just as soon as I get free–-"

"You are bound by the guts of one of your sons, Loki. Soon, I will feast, and it will be two sons binding you to your fate."

The man who was not Hrafn – Loki? Seriously? Loki? He was a character from one of Stanley's comic books – snarled.

"Yes," the thing that called itself Tlaloc purred, and turned to look down at Bill with a pleased cat smile. "Soon I will feast. Shall we begin, my dear young thing?" it asked, and ran its finger over Bill's cheek again like a razor.

Bill shivered as he felt blood spill down his chin. It got worse from there. So much worse.

 

Hrafn shifted in the rafters, listening to the foreign god at its tortures. He cawed faintly, unhappy, and flapped his wings. Separating from his angel and his body had been painful and so hard. He had no strength to fly for help, not yet. Maybe after nightfall he would be able to go, but for now, he hid in the shadows, he waited, and he prayed to Thor and to the Lady of the Last Hope.

There was no one else to ask for help, not with Frey and Freya and White Heimdall down there, torturing his angel (his Asvald) and letting the foreign god-monster torture the boy.

Hrafn tucked himself small, and prayed. Thor, Defender of Mankind, Lady Hel the Gracious Hostess, help me, help them. Please.

 

Sam knew things had to have gone seriously wrong for Hrafn to be missing – Gabriel was weak as a kitten, but he was slyer than a fox and Sam didn't think he was actually capable of getting lost, not like a human. Calling in the Ranger patrol to look for Hrafn hadn't been Sam's idea – Mimi had decided he was panicking and not thinking – well, she'd actually called Sam 'hysterical' – and overruled him.

Now, the deputy Bill Koehler was missing, and Sam had a horrible sinking feeling. Gabriel and Hrafn disappearing was unlikely enough. Gabriel and Hrafn and then Bill (who was probably better concealed than Gabriel had ever been, given how protective Gabriel was of the man who was what was left of his son) was so unlikely that Sam could only assume that something a lot nastier than a road gang had taken them all.

So he loaded himself for bear – metaphorical bear, anyway – by taking the Colt and strapping it on. He'd be ready against anything other than the Devil himself (and four other unnamed things – of course Lucifer hadn't elaborated, and getting a straight answer out of Gabriel required more leverage than Sam had ever had).

Unfortunately, Jake and Jimmy followed him out into the fading light, and Sam couldn't manage to detach them. They wouldn't be shaken, they wouldn't be diverted, and they were just slowing him down, because he had figured out how to open himself to the hidden, supernatural aspects that Gabriel had shown him that one night. Admittedly, it had been through trial, error, and Hrafn hissing at him that he was being an idiot, but he'd figured out how to open a mental peephole.

When Sam opened himself now, the entire countryside was bright with life and sensation.

Sam mostly ignored Jimmy and Jake, who were dense and brightly contained inside their bodies, and searched for Gabriel, who was huge and diffuse, like a cloud of power. He should be centered on Hrafn, so if Sam could just find the immensity of Gabriel, he should be able to find Hrafn.

"This is the stupidest thing we could possible do," Jake said, but he has a lantern in his hand.

Jimmy just looked at Jake reproachfully and said, "Bill's missing."

Sam just peered out into the evening and wished he could ditch them to move faster. He was feeling something off to the north, near where the farm ended, where Hrafn's yellow horse Fífilla had been found. There was something there.

"Jake! Sam!" Jimmy yelled, off to Sam's left, near a clump of brush along a fence line. Sam followed the shouting.

Jimmy was crouched over a figure of the ground, and Jake was trying to calm a panicking horse. A slate gray horse, on the small side – Slipper!

"Shit," Sam snapped. "It's Deputy Koehler?"

Jake frowned, but nodded. "You've got the EMT training, Sam."

Sam nodded, and crouched next to Jimmy, who was trying to rouse Bill where he was curled on the ground. He looked like he'd tangled with something big. Sam hoped it wasn't another tiger. Or another troll.

"He's breathing, but not waking up," Jimmy said worriedly.

"That's something," Sam said. "Here, hold the light while I take a look –"

Sam gasped when he touched Bill – but not Bill, not Bill at all.

'Not Baby! Mama! Mama help!' he heard Slipper – Slipper, who was screaming to anyone who had ears to hear and dancing on his eight legs – which meant he was Sleipnir, and wasn't Sam a fool for not noticing that when the gray horse just showed up one day when he and Hrafn had been on the road all those months ago – even as he recoiled. Whatever he'd laid hands on looked like Bill Koehler – but Bill was tight and bitter and defensive, and this thing was effervescent and bloody, like vampire soda.

"Shit!" was all Sam had time to say before the thing that was pretending to be Bill Koehler snapped its eyes open and rolled to its feet, quick and catlike.

"Bill?" Jimmy asked in confusion just before the thing backhanded him to the ground and he was out.

"Bill!" Jake yelled. "What the– ?"

"It's not him!" Sam yelled, even as the thing lunged forward and caught his arm, fouling his draw of the Colt.

"You're clever," the thing rumbled. "Too clever. Who gave you such eyes to see? I'll have to pluck them out."

"What the hell, Sam?" Jake yelled again.

Sam tried to punch out with his other hand, but the monster caught him there too, and then Sam was flying, tossed into Jake by something that was strong enough to send them both flying.

"Fuck!" Sam bellowed as he tried to untangle himself. He'd lost the Colt. And somehow he'd landed under Jake as they rolled. Jake tried to climb off him, but they were tangled up and fouling each other as they tried to get to their feet.

"Shit!" Jake said after he managed to scramble off Sam.

The thing had a club raised over Jimmy's slumped body. The length of it shimmered slightly in the fading light, as it had obsidian chips embedded all down it – a maquahuitl, an Aztec sword.

"Huehuecoyotl?" Sam asked, guessing that it might be a Trickster come calling. Copying Bill Koehler's shape was a good trick to get the Jerichoans close, after all.

"Do I look that old coyote?" the thing said.

Sam peered at him, focusing tight the way Gabriel had opened in him. He could smell chocolate and baked earth, blood and burnt copal, and had an impression of tawny eyes and black rosettes and a deep, devouring hunger.

"Tezcatlipoca..." Sam snarled.

"Sam, what the hell– ?" Jake began.

"Would you shut up?!" the god snapped at Jake. "Your ignorance is annoying, and you're making me wonder if you're worth the effort." Then it looked at Sam and smiled, "But you... you are. Well read, aware, valiant. Yes, you are very worth the effort...hunter."

"This was a trap. This was a trick." Sam cursed himself for walking right into it too. Frantic with worry over Hrafn and Gabriel, and Bill Koehler, unpleasant shit though he could be, Sam Winchester had walked right into a trap set by a pagan god. He hadn't even managed to draw the Colt effectively before losing it. Damnit.

"Your friend Loki isn't the only Trickster in the world. And he's certainly not the one who deserves a feast. He's been getting more belief than most of us – scraps from the damned comic, tellings of old tales. He even has worshipers now – Loki, who never had a public cult, has worshipers! While I, the patron of my people, have nothing!"

"What do you want with us?" Jake said.

Sam rolled his eyes. Civilians! "It wants to eat us, Jake. That's what pagan gods do. Eat people and act like assholes."

Tezcatlipoca snarled, and blurred out of Bill Koehler's shape to something a bit taller, darker, with raven black hair and a sculpted bony face that would have looked at home anywhere south of the border. "Oh, my friends and I have much bigger plans that that."

And then he stepped forward, and Sam only dimly registered the punch before he fell, down and out and into unconsciousness.

 

Bill groaned when Jimmy and Jake and Sam Winchester were dragged into the barn. He had been hoping for rescue, but the three most likely to provide it – Jimmy wouldn’t have given up on him, Jake had turned out to be a good leader under the ne’er-do-well of memory, and Winchester was probably one of the best hunters and trackers Bill had ever met, besides Hrafn Friththjófsson – whom Bill was quite sure wasn’t human anymore.

"Something bothering you, little one?" Tlaloc purred as he walked around examining Bill’s friends, like a man checking his purchases at the feed store.

Bill didn't responded, just watched the Aztec god. He knew – remembered! – what Tlaloc was now. Remembered Tlaloc and Tezcatlipoca from journeys across the sea with his father when he was small. He'd never journeyed with his father – Hank Koehler had been a postman his entire life and the closest they had ever gone to the sea were trips to little towns up and down the Mississippi, visiting his mother's relatives.

Bill winced against the dissonance, his memories were all confused, and wished he had a knife, a sharp nail, a goddamned rock to work the ropes tying him up against.

"Tlaloc, I let you have him, but don't make this an ostentation display."

Tlaloc and the man – god—being beside him frowned at the tall pale man who came into the barn.

"Heimdall, just because your people have no sense of proper pageantry…"

Heimdall barked out a laugh. "Torturing for sport is torturing for sport. Don't. Do what you need to get the life out Vali, but only that. Your taste for blood is foul."

"Our taste for blood keeps us alive," the god beside Tlaloc said. Bill shivered at his voice – it was the heat of the sun, and flowers, and rivers of blood down stone steps. He remembered it.

"Your taste for blood makes you little better than mortal monsters, Tezcatlipoca. If you didn't have such a connection to this land, I would make do without you."

Tezcatlipoca snorted. "You have a bare toehold, Aesir, and you know it. The humans in your homeland have all but forgotten you. All they remember is your name, and your horn, and that was a gift, was it not?"

"Aww, is there trouble in paradise?"

Bill lifted his head up just enough to glare at the being chained to posts, dangling beaten from irons. "Shut up," he hissed.

"Yes, Loki, listen to your son. Shut up. No one wants to hear your voice," Heimdall snapped.

"You’re the ones who are willing to kill one of your own for power. Not me, kinslayer."

Heindall whirled to face Loki – Hrafn – whoever he was – in a fury, "You are no kin of mine, Jotun!”

"Heimdall of the Nine Mothers, son of Odin who was my sworn brother, we are kin and past kin and you helped kill my son! Do not do it again!"

Bill shuddered, and tried to curl up against the accusation. He didn't want to remember that. He didn’t want to remember.

"Vali killed his brother, not I," Heimdall said.

"Under a curse that Odin and you Aesir cast on him!"

"We did not kill him! Our hands are clean!"

"Your hands are foul! You set one boy on another, and when it was over, you drove him out mad and foaming! You are all guilty! You are all kinslayers!"

"Stop it! Stop shouting!" Bill yelled, curling up and trying not to remember the taste of blood and raw flesh, and Narfi’s last surprised shriek. "I don’t want to remember!"

There was blessed silence for a moment, and Bill relaxed fractionally.

"Oh, child,” Tlaloc gurgled. "You’re awake. We can start again…"

Bill stared up as the goggle-eyed god approached, frozen as the deity's clawed hands spread wide.

 

Upon waking up, Jake threw up. It wasn't dignified at all, and he suffered through it even as someone held him by the back of his shirt and kept him from choking in his own vomit. He was flopped back against a wooden beam, and after several long moments, figured out that he was in an abandoned barn, he was tied up, and so were Jimmy and Sam on either side of him.

After a few more moments, it registered that there was quite a commotion going on across the width of the barn, and when he stared that way it took more time for Jake to resolve the scene in front of him – the trough, the man, the heap – into something other than one of their captors scrubbing laundry. He knew that wasn't it, because the water was glowing and thrashing...

As if the man was holding someone's head under the water. Rags resolved into a shirt tattered into ruin, and the man's hand wasn't tangled in cloth, it was tangled in wet hair.

"Shit," Jake hissed.

Sam was just staring at the man, his whole face fierce and disapproving, like a statue of a wrathful Zeus.

"Shit," Jake repeated, and then yelled at the man, "Stop that, you asshole!"

The man turned to look over his shoulder at Jake.

Jake yelped, and flinched away from the goggle-eyed face with its wide leering mouth and flickering tongue. The man... creature... thing, released its grip and the person it was torturing bucked out of the water with a desperate gasp and flopped into a wet ball.

"...Bill?" Jimmy said, in a small voice.

Jake stopped staring at the monster – monster! – and looked at the person hacking and coughing at its feet. Hair soaked to darkness, face wet and mouth open in pain, the deputy was curled up in the puddled water.

"I was just driving the humanity out of him," the monster gurgled, its impossible lizard-y face quirking up in a smile.

That didn't make any... "What?" Jake said.

"By killing him a little bit, time and again. It's delicious," the monster went on.

"You're feeding off him," Sam snapped.

"I've been hungry for so very long," the thing said, and crouched down. It brushed the back of its hand over Bill's head, which made the deputy flinch and curl up even tighter.

"Wh-what are you?" Jimmy asked from his place further away.

"I am Tlaloc, the Giver."

"Gator-face is a fertility god. Rain and harvests," came a ragged voice from beyond the dim interior lights.

"Hrafn?" Sam asked, hope in his voice.

"Sorry, Sam. It's just me."

The monster tilted his head and looked at Sam in fascination. "You know Loki? How do you know Loki, little mortal?"

Sam pressed his lips together and just glared at the thing.

"Oh, you know how it is. You meet a cute mortal when you're giving some assholes their just deserts, one thing leads to another, and you wind up riding out the End of the World at his place," the ragged voice said. It sounded like Hrafn to Jake, but without his thick accent; instead, the speaker sounded American, plain and simple and unremarkable, except that Jake knew that voice and knew it should be yowling vowels and mangling consonants and generally sounding distinctly if unplaceably foreign.

"Is that how it happened, mortal? Did the Lie-smith seduce you?" The creature grinned, its goggle eyes bright and mirthful. "Did he turn into a woman for you? I would not blame you, for falling to the temptations of a shapeshifter."

Sam's frown deepened, and he said, "You're a feeding off of Bill, but not us yet. Why? We not good enough for you?"

The monster responded by smacking Sam in the face with its clawed hand.

"... bastard," groaned a weak voice from behind the monster. "You don't... don't get to hurt... anyone... else."

The monster grinned, and turned back to loom over Bill. "Hello, child," it crooned, and reached down to stroke Bill's hair again. "You're doing well."

"...le' my friends go..."

"But they've just arrived. They must stay for chocolate."

"I am so going to kill you," the ragged voice that wasn't Hrafn stated. "Stab you, right in the face."

"You are not a god-slayer, Loki. You always left that to others, like the coward you are."

"In the face. With mistletoe."

The monster snorted, and patted Bill's shoulder. "Chocolate, soon, I promise. A treat for you and all your friends." It stood, and walked away into the depths of the barn.

Jake watched it go, and when it was gone, he scrambled forward, trying to get to the trough. But the rope tying him to the wall didn't reach, and Sam scrambled past him by virtue of longer limbs and pulled Bill away. They crawled on their hands and knees, awkwardly hobbled, dragging the deputy with them, until they were back at the wall, far from the trough and its horrors.

Sam had shoved Bill at Jimmy, and then started what looked like a rough medical check. Rough, but more thorough than anything Jake could have managed. Sam's mysterious past must have had some well-grounded EMT training, the way he was questioning Bill softly, checking for orientation and damage from the water torture.

"What the FUCK was that?" Jake said.

"Tlaloc, like he said."

"What was it..?" Jimmy asked, even as he patted Bill reassuringly and made clucking noise.

"Itza god," Bill slurred. His eyes were all strange, almost black in the dim light. Jake thought he might have blood under the surface of them, hematomas like Jake had seen after wrecks and firefights in Iraq.

"It is not a god," Jake hissed.

"Iz too."

"Aztec, right?" Sam asked, nodding at Bill.

"It's not a god! That's like saying Hrafn really has an angel!"

"I'm shocked and hurt you don't believe in me, Jake," the ragged voice called out from the far shadows.

Sam glared and snapped. "Stop helping! You're not helping! That's the opposite of helping!"

"Sorry, Sam. He's just too tempting. Skeptics and unbelievers, they're so much fun to mess with."

"I bet. Figure a way to get us out of here first; then you can mess with Jake."

"I would if I could."

"Still too weak?"

"He'z boun'," Bill mumbled.

"Bound? What could bind him?" Sam asked.

Bill shuddered at that and turtled up into a ball. He moaned out a word.

"Narvy?" Jimmy asked. "What's a 'narvy'?"

"...brother," Bill replied

"Narfi..." Sam murmured. "Narfi is the other son."

"What?" Jake shook Sam's shoulder. "What other son? Whose other son?"

"Narfi is the other son of Loki..."

"Bingo, Sammy."

"You're bound by Narfi..." Sam stared into the shadows. "We're not just dealing with Tlaloc and his minions –"

"The Innumerable Rabbits aren't his minions. Not exactly–"

"We're dealing with Norse gods?!"

"Sorry, kiddo."'

"Fuck my life."

 

Hrafn going missing – worrying, but not actually weird.

Bill Koehler going missing on the search for Hrafn – more worrying, especially since he was a local and knew the land better than anyone. At least, Mimi hoped he knew the roads and farms better than most people – it had to be part of the job of a sheriff's deputy, didn't it?

Jimmy and Jake and Sam going missing – frankly terrifying – Mimi had the sinking thought of a road crew, or maybe New Bern finally letting their desperation overtake them enough to start attacking people. Stanley had certainly frowned at the idea, but hadn't denied the possibility, and he'd been in New Bern for months.

Meeting the big, burly guy with the goat-drawn cart on the road – just plain weird. Especially when he'd jovially said, "Call me Thor!" and volunteered to help them look. Goat-cart, Thor. Kansas was full of crazy people – even Stanley had shrugged his shoulders and accepted the man's help, because... well, frankly, Mimi didn't know why. She knew they should have been suspicious of Mr. Big-Burly-and-Bushy-haired, but he just exuded trustworthiness, along with his boisterousness and overwhelming masculinity.

 

Hrafn flew, through the worlds bound by the Great Ash Tree. His eagle-chieftain, his Asvald, who gave him strength, lay bound and tormented under the hands of foreign gods, and Hrafn had no one left to pray to.

Except She-Of-the-Thankless-Tasks.

So he spread his wings – arms, wings, they were all the same now– and flew through the boughs of the Great Ash, until he comes to the branches rimed with frost.

He breathed deep, air whistling through the nares of his beak. He clacked his tongue and caws, scattering crows and scavenger birds as he descended toward the Ever-Snowy Hall, and the cold throne the Lady sat on.

He passed the sooty-red cockerel, and the great devouring hound, before he landed, his talons transforming into feet and boots as he dipped into a bow for the Lady.

"Great Lady," he said, breathing heavily in cold, "I, Hrafn Friththofson, bring news."

The lady looked at him, beautiful but cold on her throne, and said, "I know you, little raven. You were a man once but no longer. You were a man once but are not dead. You are nothing of mine–"

Hrafn interrupted, which was rude and boorish, but he must tell the lady, "Your father has need of you. Your brother has need of you."

The half-faced goddess looked down at him from her high seat. There was a wolf at her side, its throat torn out and its belly split open, that shifted to its feet and bumped its head under her hands. She petted absently and responds to Hrafn with measured words: "My father can handle his own affairs. Jormungand and Fenrir likewise."

"It is not your brother the Serpent, nor your brother the Wolf I speak of. It is Vali Sigynsson, and a foreign god has him and will torture him and drown him as a sacrifice to itself, great lady."

The lady stared at him, with such intensity that Hrafn's arms melted back into wings, and he tried to hide himself under their mantled span.

"Which god? What is its name and people?"

Hrafn knew that, blessed luck, he knew the answer. "Tlaloc of the Waters. Tlaloc of the Azteca."

The lady bolted upright on her throne. "He has no right. My brother is not a child, and not a mortal."

Hrafn shrugged, feathers rustling. "Your brother has no child of his body, and he does not know he is not mortal. He is meat for whatever god can claim him, unless he can stand on his own, or is protected by one who can."

"My father–"

"–Is bound in chains made of your brother's guts."

The wolf at the lady's side whined, past its throat bloody and torn out.

"Vali is under my hand, and my father's. Is this Tlaloc a fool, to challenge me? I am Inglorious Death. And my father is Loki the Liesmith, who is Asvald, the Godly Might of YHVH . We defend what is ours."

"Sister..." hissed the wolf at her side. Blood gurgled pasts its lips, and it spoke in a soft, boyish voice. "They want to kill Vali. They want to kill my brother..."

"Hush, little brother," the goddess said, and petted the mutilated wolf's muzzle. "They will not hurt Vali. I will not let them."

"Lady," Hrafn said, "time is passing, in Midgard. Vali may not have much left, nor your father..."

"Time is mine to control," the goddess of the Dead snarled, "I will not have some barbarian who couldn't figure out cartwheels eat one of my family."

Hrafn dipped his head, "As you say, Great Lady. I must go. The eagle-chieftain is in dire straits, and he is mine to shelter."

The lady frowned at him, and peered at him, looking through the layers of his being to what he was at his core. "You would protect an archangel, and I think you could do it. What are you, Hrafn Friththofson? What have you become, after so many years in my father's burning presence?"

"Refined, lady," Hrafn said. "Burned pure and separate, and all my shadows have fallen away to slag and dross, now that I am awake again."

The goddess of Death stretched out her cold hand, and brushed a lock of his hair back. Her fingers caught and tugged his scalp, and when she drew away, there was a feather of gleaming brass in them. It glowed, softly, with an ever-burning light.

"I think you are something new, something wondrous and strange, Hrafn Friththofson. You may yet change worlds, new old thing that you are."

Hrafn bowed, because there was nothing else to say, and threw himself up into the air, and beat dark glossy wings, leaving the Goddess of Death and her dead and worried brother.

Hrafn wondered if he did any good, carrying trouble to the lady Hel, who never did him harm. But she was a child of Loki, of his Asvald, and she had a right to know that her wandering father was in trouble, that her lost, maddened brother was in danger.

Perhaps she would help, perhaps she could help. Hrafn had to try, for his eagle-chieftain, for Vali-who-was-Bill, for Sam whom he now loved, and for the town he called home. He had to.

 

Sam looked in bogglement when the barn door swung open and a huge red-headed bruiser waltzed in, trailing Mimi and Stanley, who both looked shell-shocked. He had a wood-splitting maul propped on his shoulder, like he was going to start cutting timber any second – like he should be trailing a blue ox and maybe a logging crew.

"Ho ho ho!" the man boomed, like a demented, steroidal Santa.

"Oh, great," Gabriel said where he was chained, "Just what we need... Thor."

Sam stared at Gabriel, and then at Super-Santa in his lumberjack flannels.

"Thor?" Sam whimpered, and then rolled his eyes at Jake's disbelieving look

"Heimdall, brother, what are you doing in this drafty old barn!"

"Thor. I don't have time–"

"Of course, you do, Heimdall. Who doesn't have time for kin?"

"Thor, I'm working here."

"Yes, yes, but on what? What could you possibly be doing with Tlaloc and Tezcatlipoca of the Azteca?"

Tezcatlipoca looked up from where he'd been watching the other god's entrance with the lazy fascination of a cat. "Heimdall of the Nine Mothers has a plan for us to share the humans in these cold days..."

"Share the humans?! I didn't know that there weren't enough to go around!"

"Red Thor, you, like I, can feed on mortal death by fire. You, like I, had a wonderful feast. But much of your kin, like mine, could not eat such death..."

"No, but I have a solution to that!"

"You do?" Tezcatlipoca looked interested.

"The mortals, well, the White Christ isn't answering their prayers, is he? I've been able to scoop up any number of the sad little things," Thor said, his face turning melodramatically sad and pitying, "with just the simplest of gifts and blessings! All you have to do is feed the little things, and you can milk them for all the worship you'd like. Poor things are starved for attention–-"

"My kind are not a dairying people–" Tezcatlipoca began.

"Sucks to be you," Gabriel interrupted, which made Sam wince. "Thor's a good husbandman; he'll actually take care of his people. You Azteca though, you're just Lovecraftian horrors, ain't ya? No one is going to be stupid enough to take up worshiping you agai–"

Crack went Gabriel's jaw as Tlaloc leaned over and slapped him hard. Sam wondered why the god didn't break his hand, but maybe a god was strong enough to smack an angel – or maybe those horrible chains that were actually keeping Gabriel confined made him vulnerable too. Or maybe the archangel was just playing possum.

"Loki!" Thor exclaimed, and bounced on his feet. "You have Loki here!"

"Yes, Thor. We have Loki, chained again," Heimdall said in the tone of one who was used to having to explain things, patiently and repeatedly. Seeing as how Thor seemed to be as distractible as a dog in a park full of squirrels, Sam suspected that was a normal state for Heimdall.

"You, Uncle, have seen better days," the red-headed bruiser chuckled.

"I love you too, Thor," Gabriel said dryly.

Sam just wished he could make himself smaller. Even with all attention riveted to the enormous god in the center of the room, Sam felt too conspicuous. Especially with Stanley and Mimi trying to sneak around behind Thor and get over to where Sam and the others lay.

Mimi, blessedly resourceful, had a pocket-knife. One of Hrafn's, by the look of it, shiny and red with its Victornix cross all spiffed up. She opened it awkwardly and began sawing incompetently at the ropes. Sam hissed and wished he could take it away from her, but she'd gone to Jake first.

"Mimi, the knife," Sam said as urgently and as softly as he could.

"In a minute, Sam."

"My knife," Sam said, and nodded his head at it. The gods were continuing their argument – Thor seemed to think killing humans that were trussed up was unsporting or ungodly or something. If they just continued to jabber, and Sam got his demon-killing knife...

Mimi froze for a moment, her eyes sliding sideways. Stanley was looming behind Thor, fidgeting and being conspicuous. Which was fine as far as Sam was concerned. No one had paid attention to Mimi – maybe the gods weren't used to human women as threats? It seemed unlikely, given that Freya seemed to be a termagant, but what the hell.

"Thank you," Sam murmured as Mimi snatched the knife while the gods weren't look. Well, when the enemy gods weren't looking. Gabriel bobbed his head, as if he was listening to whatever the Aesir and the Azteca were blabbing about with all care, and Bill twisted to look over his shoulder, eyes sullen red in his splattered face.

The knife was sharp, and Sam only needed Mimi to put it in his hand. He knew more than any of them how to get out of bonds – slice here, slice there, wriggle slowly so as not to attract to much attention.

"Get out of here..." Sam said as he crawled over to cut Jimmy free.

"Bill too," the big deputy said.

Sam grimaced, but nodded. Bill was leaking power, enough to make Sam's teeth vibrate, and if he tried to use it...

Bill looked up at Sam, and Sam bit back a hiss. Bruised and cut up though he was, Bill's jaw was set mulishly, and the sullen eyes were glowing, like banked embers.

"Don't do anything stupid," Sam murmured. The rope split easily, unable to stand up to the unearthly power of the knife, and the deputy squirmed up into a crouch. Sam started to check him over, hoping that he wasn't too hurt to make a run for it.

But instead, the man made a low growling sound, and lunged forward, scrambling on hands and knees, sparking red all around him in a cloud.

"Jesus fuck!" Stanley yelped, as Bill Koehler went from tattered human to blood-encrusted wolf.

Went from human to wolf and straight for Tlaloc's back, leaping on the Aztec god with jaws snapping around his neck in fury.

It would have worked too, if Tlaloc had been anything like a human. Instead, he just threw Bill off, knocking him off to skid in a sad heap where Gabriel was still chained.

"You foul little brat–!" Tlaloc gurgled.

"Good going, kiddo," Gabriel said, putting his hand on Bill's furry head. Sam might have found it touching, but he was mostly just furious at Bill. What part of 'don't do anything stupid' was THAT?!

The wolf pulled its teeth back as the gods turned to glare. Even Thor looked annoyed that his argument with his fellow Norse gods had been interrupted.

"Give up. You have no move left to make, Vali," Freya said, in her beautiful cool voice. "This round of Hnefatafl is ours."

The wolf's ears flickered, back and forth, and a look that was almost sly came over him. Cocking his head, he looked up at Gabriel, who still had his fingers buried in his ruff, and then snapped his jaws out sideways.

"Mother of god..." Sam heard Jake yelp, as he watched what happened.

Bill as a wolf snapped out, his jaws clamping around Gabriel's wrist, and he pulled down, like he was going to yank Gabriel's arm out of its socket. But it wasn't Gabriel's arm that came off, but the chain, rolling up like a sausage casing and sloughing off over Gabriel's hand.

Just like a sausage casing, Sam realized, seeing the chain turn from dark and ominous metal to flesh as it fell. Not just flesh – intestines.

"The bowels of Narfi," Sam said, and made a face.

The wolf snapped its jaws again, and suddenly Gabriel was standing in a pile of intestines, the most grim look on his face.

"You," he said, directing his words to the Aesir and the Azteca, "are in for a worlds of hurt."

"No, Loki," Heimdall said, and pulled the Colt from his belt. "We are not."

Sam didn't even have time to cry out before Heimdall shot Gabriel in the head. Bill howled in wordless fear, and ducked sideway, bolting back in wolf shape to Jimmy's side.

"What is this?" Thor bellowed, and grabbed Heimdall's gun hand, forcing him to drop the Colt. "That was dishonorable, Heimdall."

"That was sensible!" the other god snarled. "Ragnarok is broken now, with Loki dead. There will be no steersman for Nalfgar, no boat of the dead to swarm us on the last battlefield."

"Ragnarok was broken before, with Odin dead," came a calm, liquid voice.

Sam stared at the man in the barn door – he must have followed Thor and Mimi and Stanley in, but why in the world was Yuri Koltsemirov here? What the hell was a drug-smuggler doing at a gathering of pagan gods?

Thor inhaled, his face drained of color, and he spat, "Jormungand..."

Yuri – no, Jóri, Sam realized, holy hell, the World Serpent! – smiled with his sharp, white teeth and purred, "Hello, Thor."

 

Mimi didn't know who the skinny black man was, but his appearance had all of the violent lunatics flinching.

And the dog... wolf... thing that had been Bill Koehler not three minutes ago pricking up its – his – ears and wagging his tail, so she was going to provisionally classify him as 'on our side'.

But this was really getting crazy– crazier, and she tugged on Stanley's arm. "We need to go. Now."

Stanley glanced at her sideways, and nodded. He looked at Jake, and motioned with his head towards the door.

Jake frowned and bite his lip, staring at the thing that had been Bill Koehler, that was still fetched up by Jimmy's side, and said softly, "We can't get out the door – too many of them are in the way. Loosen a board and go out through the walls?"

"Do it quietly," Sam murmured, from where he was watching the stand-off with rapt attention, his eyes flickering over the.... things, and back to where Hrafn – or whoever he'd been in the end – lay dead.

 

"You're far from your ocean, serpent," Freya said, drawing Sam's attention back to the gods and away from the human plan to get out before everything went even deeper into the shit, "You have no power here, so far from the water."

Jormungand tilted his head at her, in a manner that was so like Castiel Sam was almost breathless with shock, and then smiled. "There were oceans here, long ago, and the bones of those that swam in them still rest under the earth. I can call them up, if you like."

Jake shot a look at Sam where they crouched out of the way of the arguing gods. Stanley leaned forward and hissed, "Did he just threaten her with zombie mosasaurs?"

Sam considered the World Serpent's threat. They were in Kansas, there were fossils of all sorts of oceanic critters under the earth, and his sister was the Norse God of the Dead. So the odds were that he could sic million-year dead sea monsters on whoever he liked. "Yeah, pretty much."

Jake blanched. "He can't do that."

"He's a chaos god, Jake – I'm pretty sure he can do what he says, if he tries. His father trapped me in a Groundhog Day loop for over three months once."

Jake blinked, and turned to look where Gabriel lay crumpled. He turned back, with an unhappy frown. "I thought you were friends with Loki– Hrafn – him."

"It's complicated," Sam said. "And he and Hrafn aren't the same person. They just share the same body– it's really complicated."

 

There was a crackling from the back of the barn, that made Jake jump.

"Where you planning on heading out the back door, Tlaloc?" Yuri Koltsemirov – Jormungand – whatever his name was, asked mocking.

"What have you done, Jotun?" the goggle-eyed monstrosity snarled.

"Nothing. Not a thing," Yuri said, making an exaggeratedly innocent face. "Except send my brother to go around back and stop anyone running away that way."

"You sent the horse?!"

"I am not Sleipnir," said a voice, deep and froggy as the bottom of a well, and something flew out of the shadows at the back of the barn.

Two rabbit carcasses hit the mouldy straw at Tlaloc's monstrous feet.

"You need better servants, Tlaloc of the waters," a man said as he stepped into the light.

"FENRIR!" the woman Freyja shrieked.

Sam choked and strangled out, "Oh, my god, that's Ralph!" before breaking down in shocky laughter.

Jake didn't want to believe that the man who stepped into the light, with his warm brown skin and his shaggy, red-brown hair could be Yuri Kolsemirov's dog Ralph, but Jake had just seen Bill turn into a wolf. And the man did have Ralph's golden dog-collar around his neck like a chain. It wasn't exactly out of place with the leather vest and tight jeans – he looked like he should be trolling the gay clubs in San Diego in that outfit, spanking sailors on shore leave.

"Yuri, and Ralph," Sam said between his hysterical giggles.

Jake shot him a glare.

"Not, you know, Jori and Hrólf," Sam continued.

 

"What are you laughing about human?" Heimdall snapped, suddenly focusing on Sam and his giggles – probably to keep from panicking at the two god-slaying giants he was bottled up between. Especially with Gabriel lying apparently dead at his feet.

"Just names. Yuri and Ralph, huh. Had me fooled. I knew about him," Sam waved at Gabriel, "but I had no idea about those two."

"Did you know about Vali, too?" one of the Aesir – Sam though his name was Vidar, maybe – sneered.

"Pretty early, yeah. It was kind of obvious, since I knew his father..."

Bill made an inquisitive whine at that, his ears pricking, and he crept forward out of Jimmy's shadow.

"How did that work?" Thor interjected. "I felt you, and an actually seidwoman, beseeching me at Thorrablot."

Sam stared at the big god, and then blushed a little. "Uhm, that was Hrafn, I think."

"Who?" Thor asked.

"The ixiptla, the god-avatar. Your Loki was wearing a human as a mask to hide behind. Very clever," Tezcatlipoca said, "but completely perverse."

"Well, that's Loki for you," Thor said philosophically. "'Hrafn'? A male seidworker? And not just one of those children trying to reconstruct our ways, but one who actually knew what he was doing?" He turned to Heimdall and frowned, "You shot a priest, Heimdall! We're going to need priests! That was wasteful!"

"He was out of the body anyway," Tlaloc grumbled.

"Oh, so you didn't kill him."

The gods got into another ridiculous squabble about Hrafn's presumed spirit walk, and who he could have been running to for aid, considering all the Norse gods of note were in the barn. Sam was beginning to understand why Lucifer had despised the pagans as 'petty' so very much. Even Jormungand and Fenrir seemed to content to ignore the humans as long as they didn't make too much noise in favor of watching the gods have a spat.

But at least that argument kept them from noticing Mimi and Stanley trying to quietly pry off a wall board. Or noticing Bill creeping closer and closer to the Colt on the floor.

Until Vidar looked down and stomped his foot on down on the Colt just as Bill sidled with reach of it.

"Ha! Thought you'd get a weapon, did yoEAGGGH!"

Bill's teeth sunk into Vidar's calf over and over, until the big god reeled away, and Bill skittered sideways – with the Colt in his mouth. He was trapped on the opposite side of the barn from Jimmy and the rest of his friends as the Aesir and Azteca turned to glare at him.

"You don't even have hands to shoot–" Freyja began.

Bill shifted up into his own shape – a battered human in tattered clothes. The deputy's mouth was bloody where he'd bitten Vidar, but he had the Colt in his hands, grip proper and eyes grim as he pointed it at the gods.

"Vali," Heimdall said soothingly, "We are all Aes here, all your kin."

"You made me kill my brother," Bill said, and Sam winced at the grief and hatred shaking the deputy's voice. What wards Gabriel and Hrafn had put on his memories, they were all shattered now. What the hell was he remembering?

"Vali..." Freyja said.

"You made me kill my brother! I hate all you Aes! I am no kin of yours! I am Jotun!" Bill howled.

"You will not kill me, Vali." Heimdall said in soothing tones, "It was your father who was destined to kill me, not you."

"I will if I have to," Bill said, and Sam winced. Bill was leaving the Aes openings, places where they could try to talk him into submission. He should have just shot the monsters.

"Ragnarok is broken and I will not be killed by you, Vali Lokasson. It was your father's destiny, not yours–"

Heimdall cut off, gurgling – gurgling from the shining silver blade poking through his chest.

"It's still my destiny, Heimdall," Gabriel said from behind the Aesir. "But you – you were never going to be able to kill me, because I was only ever a Jotun by adoption, like I was an Aes."

Heimdall fell to the floor, blood welling up from his mouth and nose and the hole though his back and chest.

Sam felt himself unwind, just a little, at Gabriel, glowering in the middle of the barn with his bloody angel sword in hand. Until Gabriel knelt and pulled the horn off Heimdall's belt.

"What are you doing?" Sam yelped.

"Reclaiming what's mine," Gabriel said, "I gave Gjallahorn to Heimdall a long time ago. Better he should have it than me. He could only start Ragnarok by blowing it."

Sam looked at the instrument, which was melting from ram's horn into something longer, thinner, metallic. Son of a bitch! That thing was the Trump of Doom, the Horn of Truth – and Gabriel had stashed it with the Norse gods so he couldn't be forced to us it...

"Thor, take the humans and leave," Gabriel said, looking up and catching the eyes of the burly red-headed god.

"Loki—"

"Take the humans and leave. You weren't trying to eat them, you've been getting worshipers the old fashioned way, by actually doing things for them. I have no quarrel with you, my friend."

Thor frowned, but moved to shepherd Jake and the others out.

"Thor!" Vidar snapped.

The big god turned to look at the other gods. "You chose a dishonorable path, brother. I will not go down into Niflheim with you," he said, and left.

"What are you?" Freyja wailed as Sam hustled out of the barn, last human out.

"Wrath," Gabriel snarled, and the barn doors banged shut of their own accord.

 

"Holy shit," Stanley gasped right as Jake bumped into him. There were people all around – people who were sick looking, or blue and bloated, or sloughing skin – Jake had the sudden creeping suspicion that he'd stumbled into a zombie movie.

"Draugr," Thor – or whatever his name was – muttered in disgust. "We are surrounded by dead men."

"Are we going to have to fight our way out?" Sam asked from the rear.

"No, you are not, Sam Winchester," said a woman a on – Jake supposed it might be a horse, a rotting, hideous, three-legged horse, "My people are here to help."

"Ah... thank you? Uhm... Lady Hel?" Sam said. "How did you know to be here?"

The woman smiled, or at least she seemed to, it was hard to tell with her wrapped in that huge cloak. "Your beloved was most persuasive," she said, and brought her other arm up. There was a bird perched on it, like a falcon on a falconer's glove. Except it that heavy, straight beak never graced a bird of prey. The huge raven spread its wings and flew to Sam, landing on his shoulder.

"Saaaaam," it croaked.

"Hrafn?! You're all right!" Sam exclaimed, and reached up to muss the bird's feathers.

Jake was not willing to accept that the bird was Hrafn Friththjófsson. Not even after seeing Bill turn into a wolf and back – speaking of that, he turned to look at the barn.

It was shaking, and glowing, like fireworks were going off inside, but Jake couldn't hear anything.

"Oh, crap," he murmured.

"We need to leave," Sam said.

"I have horses for you," the woman said, and snapped her fingers. Some of the... people … brought up horses for them.

"This horse looks dead," Mimi wailed.

Jake looked at the horse he'd been offered. The lightning-bolt blaze was familiar. He swallowed convulsively.

"Get on it anyway!" Sam barked, and pulled himself up on a horse that was visibly missing chunks over its ribs. "We're out of here!

Jake mounted, and turned his horse towards home, urging it into a canter, desperate to get away from the barn and the fearsome things inside it.

They were over a rise and well on their way back, when the sky lit up behind them, and they all pulled up to look.

What must have been the barn was exploding, light that flashed brighter than day, leaving afterimages on his eyes like the beating of mighty wings.

"We're out of here," Sam repeated, and Jake was all too glad to follow him home.

 

Part Seven: every backroad in that broken promise land

It was morning when Thor came up the drive with his goat-drawn chariot. Sam was sipping awful herb tea, and looking out over the farm. The kids had taken it upon themselves to get the cows milked today, which was just fine with him, since he was still exhausted and Hrafn didn't currently have hands. Though the feathers were kind of pretty, and he'd been having fun hopping from one chair-back perch to another. Sam wasn't sure he'd eaten yet, not sure that he even needed to eat like that.

So when he caught sight of Thor outside the door, Sam placed Hrafn on his shoulder like a piratical parrot, and went out onto the porch.

"Sam..." Gabriel slurred from where he was draped upside down in Thor's arms, like the world's biggest housecat. He looked drunk, and ill. There were blisters on his face, over the thin skin at the corner of his eyes and the bridge of his nose – the way Lucifer had looked, once.

"What the hell happened?!" Sam yelled, and hustled Gabriel over to a couch.

"Eagle-chieftain?" Hrafn croaked, and hopped onto Gabriel's lap, and began plucking at his hair.

"Shit, you look like a mess. I'll get my kit..."

The door to the downstairs bedroom flung open, and Jimmy and Jake staggered out, looking very much like they'd slept in their clothes. Which they had. Jake had the sense to put his gun back in the room when he saw that it was Gabriel again.

"Oh..."

"Where's Bill?" Jimmy asked, coming around Jake where he was standing flummoxed.

Gabriel looked up from where he was petting Hrafn's soul-form. He frowned blearily, as if he couldn't quite remember who Jake was, or why he'd be asking about Bill.

"He's following," Thor said from where he stood by the door. "You understand why I didn't want to travel with your friend and his brothers, I hope."

Sam nodded, "They're godslayers, you're a god, bad combo, yes."

Thor snorted, then ventured over to the couch, and put a hand on Gabriel's shoulder. "You, my friend, are a menace and a terror, and I hope we don't meet again for a very long time."

"I love you too, Thor."

"Good luck with him, Sam Winchester," Thor snorted, and nodded to Jimmy and Jake as he headed out the door. He left in a clatter of bleating goats and a clap of thunder.

 

Jake waited on the couch, staring worriedly out the window. Sam had gone to do his daily work, but Hrafn and the angel – he still had trouble with the bird being Hrafn and the body being an angel, even though he'd seen been in that barn, he'd seen a lot of crazy things – were on the couch. Well, the angel was drowsing, eyes closed and head nodding, and the bird was fussing over him from the back of the couch. Jimmy had mustered up to go into town to get Kim, and call off the rest of the searchers, and Stanley and Mimi were somewhere, maybe out on the other side of the house, cooking or gardening, or something. Jake had been left to watch Hrafn and his angel, and wait for Bill's promised arrival.

There was a bang on the door – rat tat tat, rat tat tat – and Jake sprang to the door.

The two dark faces on the other side made him want to slam the door in their faces. Instead he barked out, "Where the hell is Bill?!"

Yuri Koltsemirov reached into his jacket and pulled out... a duckling? No, it was too big for a duckling, but it was some fuzzy baby waterfowl.

"What the fuck is–?"

"Little brother Vali's true shape was a surprise to us as well," the red-head next to Koltsemirov rumbled.

"Hrólf? That you?" came the angel's voice, slurring and weak-sounding.

Hrólf (not Ralph, not the big red dog that had played endless rounds of 'fetch' in the park with all the kids who wanted to throw things for him) shouldered past Jake into the house. Koltsemirov followed, clucking to the bird.

"Hey," the angel mumbled, smiling up at them. "Is that... wow, that's a surprise."

"What is that?" Jake asked.

"Vali," the angel said, stroking a finger over the fuzzy yellow head.

"Your friend Bill," Kolsemirov said, "I truly thought he'd be a weasel, at the core."

"Vali-Gaesling," Hrólf chuckled. "It fits. Loyal, protective, prone to bite..."

"He's a goose?!"

"Not yet," the angel murmured. "This is a gosling." He pet the fuzzy head again, and then handed the bird to Koltsemirov. "Take him upstairs, Jori. Put him to bed. He should revert to human shape, soon, I think?"

The raven hopped onto Koltemirov's shoulder as he took the gosling into his arms. The raven croaked, "Put him in my room, serpent-child. The bed is big enough."

 

Bill woke in an unfamiliar room, on an unfamiliar bed, and had a horrible moment of complete disorientation.

"You're in Hrafn and Sam's room, in the Richmond house."

Bill froze, and then sat up.

The person sitting in the chair by the window looked like Hrafn Friththjófsson, at least at first. But the longer Bill looked at him, the more he could see – the light shining under his skin, and the crackling fury fanning out after him in a train of wings hundreds deep.

"You're... who are you?"

"You know who I am."

"No, no I don't," Bill snapped. "I remember Loki, I remember him being my father, once, but I remember a lot of fathers. A lot of mothers, too. And I have no idea who you are."

"Hrafn's angel."

"What is your name?" Bill demanded.

The angel looked infinitely sad for a moment, under the scabs and bruises, and then said, "Gabriel. My Father named me Gabriel."

Bill stared. "Gabriel's in the Bible."

The angel raised an eyebrow.

"Holy crap.." Bill looked at Gabriel, "What does that make me? Half-angel, half-human, that's got to–"

"Sigyn was a goddess, not a human. I'd never have a child with a human."

"Humans not good enough for you?"

Gabriel shook his head. "Angels aren't good enough for humans – we corrupt their children when we try to breed with them, only passing on soullessness to the nephilim – the offspring. And then I have to kill them."

Bill froze at that. "I have a soul, don't I?"

Gabriel looked apologetic. "Sort of. You have something like my Grace."

"But it's not a soul?"

"Not a human soul, no."

Bill shivered. If he didn't have a soul...

"You're are not damned, William," Gabriel said.

"But I can't be saved either, if I don't have a soul–"

"Narfi didn't extinguish when he was killed, not like an angel would have. After you die, you'll go on."

"Alone. Without Kim..."

"Maybe. I don't know what will happen to you. You believe in my Father – that might make a difference. You might go to the Heaven that humans get."

Bill rubbed his hands over his face – it was a lot to take in, and it made him heartsick to think on. Also he had all sorts of crazy recollections coming at him, every time he looked at anything. In fact...

He looked at the angel, and asked, "Did I jump out an airplane?"

"You were a paratrooper, once."

Bill nodded. He remembered that, and the sheer delight he'd had in the fall. Obviously, he'd been a crazy bastard in some of his lives. Speaking of crazy..."Was I a goose..?"

"I thought you'd be a weasel, actually. That surprised us all. Even Jake."

"Oh god, Jake.... Jimmy! Everyone saw–"

"Four of your friends saw, plus your brothers. And me. And Sam Winchester – who has a lot bigger fish to fry than one minor pagan god. And Hrafn, who is even weirder than you, when it comes down to it. Don't let it worry you."

Bill nodded. He could deal with things later, but there was one thing he wanted to know, now that he had some facts. "You said you wouldn't have a kid with a human..."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "And...?"

"What did you do to me? Kim and I – I love Linh, I do – but we tried for so long..."

Gabriel sighed. "I'm sorry, kiddo. I truly am. But you can't have kids with humans. It's too dangerous, for them."

Bill swallowed at that, and felt completely ashamed of himself when he began to cry.

He barely noticed when the angel came out of his chair and sat beside him. But when Gabriel put his arms around him, Bill turned into that embrace.

"Faeder," he mumbled, "Faeder."

"Ah, Vali, my own, my nestling," Gabriel said, and stroked his hair.

 

The rumble of a car made Mimi look up from where she was trying to assemble lunch out of corn meal and smoked horse shank – sort of an osso buco variant, except much less exciting. Fortunately the cookware was fairly tolerant of fire, and the fireplace wasn't too bad to cook in now that she had experience (and Sam and Hrafn had jerry-rigged stands for the pots, so it was mostly a matter of having the fire banked and time to let things braise and simmer to get something edible.

She had expected the knock at the door, and was already over there yanking it open before the first ratatat faded.

"Daddy!" Linh Koehler cried, rushing in and around Mimi, and heading straight for the couch to tackle Bill in a hug. The deputy made a face at the treatment, and swallowed what must have been a whimper – Mimi had seen his ribs a few hours ago, when Sam was wrapping them, and he was purple and fading yellow from collarbones down to his waist, and probably further. Those monsters hadn't been pulling punches.

"Bill..." Kim said, much quieter. Mimi smiled sympathetically, and took the baby from her as she brushed past to hug her husband, more carefully than their daughter, but with no less urgency.

Mimi smiled, and when Eric Sharpnack came in, looking very worried about his foster parents, she gave the boy a one-armed hug and shoved him gently towards the couch.

It was so touching that Mimi felt herself misting up, but she knew she'd deny it if anyone caught her at it. Which of course was when she heard soft footsteps on the stairs, and Hrafn – or whoever he was today – came down the steps, barefoot and oddly vulnerable looking with his blisters and bruises. He'd come out of everything looking worse than Bill, in some respects.

Mimi caught his eye as he settled down on the steps, and looked at the Koehlers through the railing. He smiled a little ruefully, and wrapped his hands over his knees.

"–did you get that jacket?" Kim was asking, when Mimi turned back to pay attention.

Bill fingered the leather garment he was wearing over a soft sweater borrowed from Hrafn – it was hardly like he could borrow Sam or Stanley's clothes, after all. Mimi knew exactly why it had drawn Kim's attention, besides being something other than his deputy's jacket. It was kind of fashion-forward, which was not Bill at all. The leather was cut and seamed to show off waist and shoulders, and had a faint feathery texture all over.

"I..." Bill trailed off, as if he couldn't remember.

"It's a gift, if you like," Hrafn said – clearly, plainly.

Mimi stared at him, completely astonished. The words had been unaccented, the vowels American. Hrafn blinked up at her lizard-like, unflappable, as Kim thanked him, and went back to clucking over Bill.

Mimi didn't know what to say, to the person who she didn't think was Hrafn, for all that he looked at her with Hrafn's light hazel eyes and wore Hrafn's pajamas with one of Sam's hoodies topping it all.

She was saved, or at least distracted, by little Linh walking over and asking, "Can I have one of your flowers?"

Not-actually-Hrafn's eyebrows shot up, and he looked at Linh in surprise. "You can see my ... flowers?"

"Can I have one?" the little girl asked again.

"You can have one if you can pick one out yourself."

Linh smiled at that, and reached up to not-Hrafn's head, and pulled a flower out from behind his ear, as if she were a stage magician pulling a trick. But it wasn't a paper flower in her hand, no magician's trick at all. The little girl had a flower, like a white six-pointed star with a splash of yellow in the center, in her hand. She grinned in satisfaction, and walked back to her parents with her prize.

"Where," Mimi asked with quiet ferocity, "did you get a Madonna lily?!"

"She shouldn't have been able to do that. Unless..." not-Hrafn stared at Linh.

"Hey," Mimi hissed, "Back here, buddy."

The man blinked, then smiled. It wasn't as sweet as Hrafn's smile, and it was creepy to see that familiar face move in ways that weren't quite right.

"You, Loki, or whoever you are, answer the question. Where did you get a Madonna lily?"

"They're my flower... but she should be human. I think Bill leaks."

"Leaks?"

"Grace, yes. He leaks. I think Linh will be great, and I think all will be well."

Mimi frowned at him, and turned back to watching the Koehlers – Kim was trying to help Bill off the couch, and while he wasn't that tall, neither was Kim and they were wobbling in that way that Mimi thought meant she might have to intervene.

"I don't trust you."

"You're in good company, Mimi Clark. I'm not exactly a tame lion, if you know what I mean..."

Mimi boggled. "You've read C.S. Lewis? Hrafn's delusional other personality, the part of him that is an angel, and you're the part that reads fantasy novels?"

"I'm not a delusion, Mimi."

"Right, because you're an angel."

"Yes."

"You don't have an angel name. Hrafn calls you 'Oswald'"

"Asvald. Hrafn calls me 'Asvald'. It means 'Godly Might'."

"That's not an angel name."

"Yes it is. Asvald. 'Godly Might', 'Might of God', same difference, really."

Mimi frowned... what name meant 'Might of God'?

"That you're going to have to look up yourself," not-Hrafn said, and levered himself off the steps to go bug Kim and Bill with his quiet yet smug presence.

The exchange would bug Mimi for a long time, at least until she got to a library... and found a baby name book. Finding 'Gabriel' didn't make her less anxious, it just changed her reasons for her nerves. The bastard did it on purpose, she was sure, later.

 

Hrafn waited on the footboard of the bed. The house was quieting down, now that Jake and Bill and Jimmy were gone (Bill after a tearful reunion with his wife) and the day’s work was done. He heard Sam on the stairs, and looked up when Sam slipped into the room. Gabriel looked up too, from where he was sitting by the window. He'd stayed there every since Bill had headed downstairs, looking out into the slowly greening farmland.

"Gabriel..." Sam said.

"Hmm," his angel replied.

"That's Hrafn's body."

"Yes?"

"Don't you think you should let him back in it?"

"Yeah," Gabriel chuckled ruefully, "Except I'm not sure how to get him back in here, and this body will explode soon if I don't get a soul back in it. I don't know how Lucifer managed after he killed his Vessel–"

"Drank demon's blood to strengthen it," Sam said.

Hrafn cackled at the face Gabriel made.

"Yeah, let's not do that... but you said you need Hrafn's soul?"

"Angels have to have souls in our Vessels. Otherwise we fry them," Gabriel touched his face, fingers flitting over the scabs at the corners of his eyes and the bridge of his nose, "from the inside out."

"That's why you have to have consent?"

"Part of it, yeah."

Sam was frowning. "Can't you do whatever you'd do to his body if you were stuffing his soul back in for a resurrection? Cas did that, so you should be–"

"It's not the same from the inside," Gabriel said tetchily. "There's no... leverage... from in here.

"Well, then, how about you get out of there and–"

"I'll die if I'm not in a Vessel."

Hrafn cawed at that, and hopped into Gabriel's lap. "You are that weak, my eagle-chieftain?" he asked, looking up at Gabriel.

Gabriel made an embarrassed, disgusted face.

"Jeez, Gabriel," Sam groaned. "I thought getting your Horn back would have helped."

"I drained all the Grace I left in it to take out Tezcatlipoca."

"Oh."

Hrafn hopped onto the arm of Gabriel's chair, and looked the angel in the eye. "You cannot put me back in my body from the outside."

"Nope."

"And you can't leave my body without dissolving?"

"I can't survive outside of a Vessel at the moment, no."

Hrafn gave Gabriel a look, being unable to roll his eyes in this shape, then turned to Sam.

"Yeah, Hrafn, he's an idiot."

"Hey!" Gabriel protested.

"Gabriel, I'm a Vessel. One for an archangel, to boot."

Gabriel froze, and then melted into the most appallingly hopeful look. "I didn't think to ask, kiddo. I know you hated dealing with Lucifer."

"Because he was the Devil."

"Ask, eagle-chieftain," Hrafn laughed, and poked the angel with his beak.

"Sam, can I take you as a Vessel, just long enough to stuff Hrafn back into his own body?"

"Yes."

Gabriel smiled, and sighed. Hrafn mantled his wings and ducked low as the archangel flowed out of his body and into Sam. It was disturbing to see his own body slump in the chair, like a discarded doll.

"None of that, Hrafn," Sam's voice said, and Sam's hands wrapped around him, but Hrafn could feel how it was Gabriel, crackling like ice, like lightning, under Sam's skin as the archangel took him and folded him and pushed him back into his body.

Hrafn gasped, and looked down at his fingers in confusion. He already missed his wings. He looked up, at his angel, smiling cock-eyed out of Sam's body.

"It is very odd seeing you in Sam," Hrafn told his angel. "And very odd being alone in my own mind."

"You lonely?" Gabriel asked, making Sam's familiar features move in ways that they normally didn't.

"Yes. Very."

"And I don't fit in Sam very well – let me back in?" Gabriel asked.

"Oh, eagle-chieftain," Hrafn laughed, and pulled Gabriel down into a kiss, deciding that if he only had this chance, he would not waste it. Gabriel made a muffled squeak, but kissed back...

and then flowed back, pouring from Sam's body back into Hrafn's, where he belonged, moored under Hrafn's heart.

 

Epilogue: A dime and a dollar and a one-way ticket home

It'd been two years since Jake staggered off in pursuit of a nuclear bomb with no plan, no back-up and no idea what he was doing. That he didn't get himself killed by gun or air-to-air missile or just plain exhaustion since then is probably a miracle, and maybe a blessing from an actual angel.

He was sitting in a train car, clicking his way towards home, surrounded by troops heading toward the front– the Rocky Mountains theater, with Cheyenne bottled up and most of the High Plains in open revolt from the corporatists who'd almost succeeded in stealing the country from everyone.

He was heading home.

He was dreaming.

He knew he was dreaming, because he opened his eyes to find himself sitting in his train cabin – he rated a semi-private cabin now, what with being the guy who delivered the nuke to Texas, and thus Texas to the USA – with Bill Koehler sitting across from him, looking out the window, his face melancholy and tired-looking.

He hadn't seen Bill in two years, not since he'd gone after the bomb. Why he would be dreaming of Bill, instead of Eric and Mom or even Mom and Dad...

Then the guy turned away from the window, to look at Jake, and Jake gasped. Those hazel gold eyes that shone with their own light, and a lily tucked behind one ear – that wasn't Bill.

"Hi, Jake," the angel said.

"Hi," Jake said in a weak voice.

"So, you're coming home."

"I am."

"Took you long enough."

"I couldn't come home right afterward. Cheyenne was looking for me – I had assassins come after me even in Columbus!"

"Such is the fate of heroes."

"I'm not a hero!" Jake hissed. He hated being called that – he'd done what he had to, but the adulation made him feel guilty. He knew what a fuck-up he'd been; finally doing the right thing was finally doing the right thing, not worth all the fawning.

"Okay, sure, if you like," the angel shrugged, and fingered the trumpet that Jake just noticed was in his lap. "But, coming home, finally. I'll have to tell the boys."

"I sent letters." He had – paper letters, that the Red Cross promised to try and deliver, because email home was likely to fry on the ASA firewall, and that was if anyone even had access to a computer and the internet anymore. USA forces had found more than one town with ruined phone and electrical lines, a sort of electronic scorched earth tactic.

The angel laughed, "Even I couldn't get your letters through, Jake my boy, and I'm the patron of the postal service. The ASA had censors everywhere."

"Damnit... So no one knows I'm coming?"

"I know. Because I'm awesome."

Jake just frowned at the angel.

"Hrafn will tell everyone, when he wakes up."

"Everyone thinks Hrafn is crazy."

"True," the angel said, his face twisting into a ridiculous put-upon expression, "but they don't usually think he's wrong. Not anymore."

"Oh," Jake said.

"There will be a party for you, don't you worry, kiddo."

"I'm not worried."

"Yeah, right."

"I just want to know what's going on back home."

The angel leaned forward, and looked into Jake's eyes. "I can tell you..."

"Oh, thank god. Tell!"

"... but I think I'd rather it be a surprise. Time to wake up, Jake." And he snapped his fingers.

Jake gasped, his eyes flying open.

"Goddamnit," Jake said.

One of his cabin-mates, one of the Marine NCOs, looked at him. "You okay, dude?"

Jake nodded. "Weird dream. Angels are dicks."

The Marine's eyebrows bounced up in surprise. Jake was about to apologize, worried that the guy might be actually religious, when the guy said, "Yeah, ain't that the truth."

FINIS