Work Text:
Disconnected (or, The Number You Are Trying to Reach...Is Pretty Much Ignoring You)
by Sam-Tony
"What are you *doing*?"
"Well *duh*."
Pausing in lighting the last candle, Gabriel rolled his eyes - lighting candles, obviously - before realizing that catching an archangel in the act of completing a Beltane circle in a little rock-shrown grotto just outside of Alliance, Nebraska might look a little...odd.
"Come on in, Sammy. Always more room on the Pagan train. Just let me know if you want in, though - I'll have to cut a door in the Circle."
Cause, yeah, you know. Archangel power tended to be just a little, well - more *potent* - than your average coven...
He watched Sam Winchester slide closer, hands in his pockets as if not to inadvertently touch anything while lighting the dark green candle on his altar. As the flame joined the other four to burn brightly in the dark starlight of the little clearing, the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle rose to fill the cool May night; a light breeze sending the scents out to tease the human's nose. Gabriel watched as Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath, never even realizing he had done it.
Green eyes opened again and the angel could see the myriad of emotions flitter through - confusion, suspicion, humor, that vague - not so vague - sense of horror. Surely this was blasphemy...
The question, when it came, didn't disappoint.
"Who do you *pray* to?" Sam asked, disbelief thick in a tone layered with disapproval. "What do you ask for?"
"Who says I ask for anything?" Gabriel asked, holding a sprig of oak over the flame of the altar candle and watching the thin, skeletal arms start to burn. He had rowan, birch and hawthorn set aside to offer next. Tsking in reproach, he looked up and caught the wide stare fascinated by the small fire and chided, "You and your brother. You know, that's what I love about you Winchesters - forget research, forget the *facts*. You never let any of that get in the way of a good, old fashioned, prejudicial misconception, now do you boys?"
"Dean hates witches - "
Gabriel rolled his eyes at the thick skulls of the Last Great Hope For The World and huffed. "Yeah. I know. " His eyes slid sideways as he poked. Didn't these boys ever think for themselves? "What's *that* about anyway?"
"Long story."
"Oh I'll bet."
Sam smiled at that while Gabriel smirked. "That's for you," he nodded toward the oak just outside his Circle. "Happy May Day, Sammy."
He put the rest of the ritual on hold just to see the look on the his face as Sam carefully plucked the woven paper basket with it's tiny bundle of flowers and yarn handle from the branches as if it was a monster going to bite him. Holding it almost up to his nose, he sniffed the blooms while the colorful yellow and green cross-woven construction paper twirled from his fingers in the light breeze. "This isn't...I don't know...some kind of sneezing powder or something, is it?"
"No," Gabriel growled, exasperation and humor warring in the low rumble. Because *that* - now that would have been a hoot...maybe he should alter it as soon as Sam met Dean at the motel...
"Uh huh."
"Go on, human child, " the Trickster demanded haughtily, waving an idle hand as he turned back to his altar. "Go bug your brother. I have more important things to do than be insulted by your degenerate suspicions."
A short bark of laughter met the command and Gabriel couldn't stop the smile - the smirk - that rose up to meet it.
"I notice you didn't say baseless suspicions."
"Hmm. You know, you're right. Could be a reason for that, you suppose?"
"Probably."
He was still smiling when Sam made his way back down the path to the motel, taking his flowers in their May basket with him. What should he have said? He was trying to talk to dear old Dad by using an unfamiliar 'phone' number? It probably wouldn't do any good anyway, and if it failed, Cas - they didn't need to know.
Oak and other woods of protection burned, his circle consecrated and fortified, Gabriel - Trickster and archangel of God - sent out his thanks, his need for a peaceful, bountiful season (read: no demons or angels barking up their collective trees just yet, until they had - you know - a *plan*)...
...and his ever more desperate call for his Father to pick up the damned phone.
--
Coming out of his search with a angry huff, Gabriel blinked at the candles burned down in their cardinal directions, the blue candle to the West having melted and dripped rivers of wax down over the small boulder he had set it on. Adventure it was to be then, and it appeared a messy and wide spread adventure at that.
No answer. Again. Big freakin' surprise.
Rising from his cross-legged perch in the grass, Gabriel sighed and grumbled. His butt was numb, more than a few vertebrae cracked with the motion, and it may be well into Spring, but his nose was a frozen icicle on the tip of his face.
Blowing out the candles, he uncast his Circle, going from north to east to south, but it wasn't until he got to that western candle that he spotted something set on another rock a little further out.
Circle gone and energy released into what was once again an average, mundane field behind the cheapest motel chain Dean could find, stepping over to it, the angel picked up the necklace of flowers with their stems woven together - the same flowers he had given to Sam in their basket woven of paper...
And laughed with the first bit of unadulterated joy he had felt in a good long while.
That boy was learning.
End