Fic: 'For Love is Strong as Death', 3/?
Title: For Love is Strong as Death
Characters/Pairings: TFW. Sam/Gabe, eventual Dean/Cas slash.
Summary: Four months after the apocalypse that wasn’t, Sam, Castiel and Gabriel are brought back to life at the same time and place, leaving Sam to deal with two suddenly human angels and the fact that he can never see his brother again...
A/N: Warning for flippant remarks made about Christianity; no offence intended.
Masterpost
Being bailed out of jail by Castiel, ex-angel of the Lord, was so very far from the proudest moment in Sam’s life.
They’d been dragged in under the relatively minor charges of drunk and disorderly, and disturbing the peace. However, a search of Sam had quickly added carrying a concealed weapon to his list of offences, and Gabriel’s illegal - and unfair - gambling really hadn’t improved matters.
It was nearly morning by the time Castiel paid up with cash from Sam’s credit card and they were free to begin walking back to the motel, the car having been impounded. It was freezing, the grass crunching under their trudging boots, and the east sky was an eerie green-blue with coming daybreak.
“So,” Gabriel broke the silence after maybe half an hour. “...That happened.”
“I hate you,” Sam informed him without preamble, factually, as though it was a declaration he’d just been waiting to make.
Castiel sighed, and they continued walking without another word.
xxx
They moved on again almost as soon as Sam liberated the car, all of them tense and snappish and sleep deprived. Castiel shamelessly stole his brother’s customary place in the back seat and promptly fell asleep there, his old trenchcoat thrown over him like a blanket and his rucksack serving as makeshift pillow. That put Gabriel up front with Sam - neither of whom were particularly pleased by such arrangements.
They went west into Iowa, Sam wanting to cross state lines in case the arrest had stirred up things with the FBI again (that would be just typical, essentially adding injury to insult). Gabriel watched the cornfields pass by through the window as they drove, bored. The radio wasn’t getting reception, so he couldn’t even fiddle with the stations. Occasionally, he chanced a look across the car, but only ever ended up wincing when he laid eyes on the human.
Outnumbered, Sam had taken a fair few hits in the bar last night before authorities had intervened. Now, in the unforgiving winter daylight, a dark bruise was starkly visible across one sharp cheekbone and his lower lip was split. His jaw clicked whenever he unclenched it long enough to talk, and on the steering wheel his knuckles were cut and swollen.
Gabriel, on the other hand, had escaped without a scratch.
He should have been pleased with himself, all things considered. Would have been, usually. Having always had a talent for avoiding blame and dodging consequences, it was something of a relief to find the skill hadn’t deserted him along with his powers. But something was different, in this particular instance. There was something almost... unsatisfying about the whole debacle. He wondered if it was because, this time, he hadn’t simply sidestepped the consequences - someone had willingly stepped in and taken them for him.
Sam had willingly stepped in and taken them for him.
Something unpleasant and unfamiliar twisted in his gut. Idly, he regretted eating the spicy chicken wings back at the biker bar.
He absolutely refused to acknowledge the possibility that it might be guilt.
xxx
His unease lasted the rest of the day, refusing to let him nap like Castiel was doing, or provide his usual irreverent, irrelevant chatter. He remained subdued throughout the journey, was in the same state when they finally signed into yet another room and he and Castiel watched Sam all but pass out on the first bed he stumbled into, having been running on nothing but nerves for the past two days.
Castiel shucked off his tatty army jacket, tossing it and his rucksack onto the other bed and giving Gabriel a pointed look. “If you really feel the need to cure your boredom again, I’d advise you to find a way to do it inside the building this time.”
Gabriel scowled and made a hand gesture that suggested exactly what his little brother could go do with his advice.
xxx
He couldn’t sleep.
Gabriel had discovered a newfound fondness for sleep, once he’d finally figured out the trick to it. To suddenly be deprived of it was apparently yet another cruel and unusual aspect of being human. He fidgeted irritably on the worn and uncomfortable couch, a loose spring digging into his back and every movement dragging an alarming creak from the rickety piece of furniture.
At some point past midnight he admitted defeat with a loud sigh and tossed aside the blanket covering him, shivering in boxers and T-shirt. Trying to ignore the vague sense of self-disgust, he got up from the couch and crossed the room to stand beside Sam’s bed, considering the human. Even in the gloom, Gabriel was keenly aware of the bruise on his face and that his split lip had bled again during the night. It wasn’t like they were serious injuries - they were nothing, actually, in comparison to other blows Sam had taken over the years. Hell, they weren’t even the worst injuries Gabriel was directly responsible for.
Nevertheless, he felt another inexplicable surge of guilt.
Without really thinking it through, he sat himself on the edge of Sam’s bed, bouncing the mattress unnecessarily. Sam let out a breath, and without opening his eyes turned on his side, away from Gabriel. The archangel froze, unsure if that had been a coincidental movement of sleep or a pointed rebuff.
Decided it didn’t really matter one way or another.
“Hey Sasquatch?” He didn’t dare raise his voice above a whisper, reluctant to give what he was about to say volume or substance. He got no response anyway, which actually made things a little easier. “...Look. It’s not that I’m admitting fault or anything, just so we’re clear. Because I wasn’t. At fault, I mean. No one asked you to jump in and play hero. I was... It would have been fine. And anyway! If you weren’t such an overprotective control freak-” He cut himself off abruptly, realising he’d been hissing the words at Sam’s unresponsive back and pausing to roll his eyes at himself. “Anyway, you should really try to break this unfortunate trend of self-sacrifice, if you want my advice. You’d think after dying half a dozen times that that lesson would have been drilled into your Cro-Magnon-like skull. This could be your last resurrection for all we know - although it seems unlikely, considering the Winchester tendency towards cockroach-esque immortality...” Well, now he was just getting off topic. “My point is... My point is you should stop worrying so much, kiddo. Me and Castiel are big boys, we’ve been around a while. Your well-meaning but ultimately naive attempt to play overbearing protector is starting to grate. So just... yanno... unclench a bit and we’ll get on fine.”
His hand hovered briefly over Sam’s muscled shoulder as though to pat it, but after a second or two he dropped it again without touching. He kind of hoped Sam really was asleep. Gabriel hated having to say thanks.
With a sigh, he got up and walked back to the couch, steadfastly refusing to glance back and find out one way or another. Consequently, he missed the glint of Sam’s open eyes in the darkness, and, in the next bed over, Castiel’s too.
xxx
Castiel woke the next morning with a... problem.
He’d been dreaming, fragmented and intense, mental flashes of sensation he wasn’t accustomed to and couldn’t remember clearly. The phenomenon wasn’t exactly a new experience; he’d dreamt several times since becoming human, imaginings and muddled memories filtering through his head, leaving him disorientated whenever morning came. It was, however, the first time he’d ever been physically effected: his cheeks stinging with heat as blood cells gathered beneath the skin there, his heartbeat heavy and fast, and... lower down, everything tense. He blinked at himself - or, rather, at the foreign human vessel that had become himself - feeling perplexed and uncomfortable and vaguely unsatisfied.
The bathroom door opened and Sam emerged, casting him a casual glance in passing before abruptly stopping and performing a double-take. His eyes widened dramatically before darting towards the ceiling and fixing there.
“Uhm, Cas? You maybe wanna... do something about that? ...Please?”
Again the angel looked down at himself, not comprehending what was happening. He’d thrown off the coverlet some time during the night, and the thin bedsheet did little to conceal the bizarre tenting in his pyjama pants. He cocked his head at it, bemused.
Apparently noticing his confusion, Sam winced and turned away. “Oh my god, I’m so not dealing with this.” He strode across the room to where Gabriel still slept and leaned down to shake him insistently awake. “C’mon, get up. Wake up.”
The archangel struggled back to consciousness, trying to fend the other off. “Jeez, what? You wanna start talking to me again now?” He rubbed his eyes tiredly and yawned. “This mean you’re done with the cold shoulder routine?”
Hands on hips, Sam nodded dismissively. “Yeah, sure, whatever. You’re completely and totally forgiven - provided you go give your brother The Talk right the fuck now.”
Gabriel turned to peer blurrily at Castiel, blinking a few times before his expression slowly lit to something wicked and gleeful. “Is that...?”
“Yes. So would you please just-”
“Aaw. Castiel’s first morning wood. Oh, that’s adorable.”
“It’s really not,” Sam maintained, prodding Gabriel up from the couch. “Just... I don’t know, talk him through it or something. I’m gonna go be... anywhere else, frankly.”
True to his word, he made a prompt beeline for the door - not quite managing to escape before Gabriel called out, “Hey, he should just think about Dean. I’m sure he could figure things out from there all on his own!”
The door slammed and Gabriel turned to regard him seriously. “Alright, from now on, not another word about me abandoning responsibilities, because this? Is above and beyond, bro. Above. And beyond.”
xxx
Sam came back an hour later with breakfast, pointedly not asking how the impromptu sex ed. session had gone (there were, after all, some things he just didn’t need to know about). He handed Gabriel his box of pancakes and Cas his sausage McMuffin, and then hovered indecisively until the attention of both angels slowly drifted towards him.
“S’up?” Gabriel asked messily through a mouthful of syrupy cake.
“I was, uh... thinking I could teach you guys some hand-to-hand. Self-defence, yanno? If you wanted.”
Gabriel stopped chewing and swallowed hard, clearly surprised. Even Castiel sat up straighter in his chair, paperback softly placed aside. “Oh?”
“I haven’t changed my mind. We’re not going on a hunt.” He pinned them both with a look that brooked no arguments, before letting it turn wry. “But since you’ve proven you can still incite perfectly normal humans into trying to kill you, I figure you should at least know how to defend yourself if anything does come up...” He shrugged awkwardly, sheepish.
Castiel gave him the smallest of approving nods. “I believe that would be wise.”
Gabriel, however, scrambled to his feet, pancakes abandoned, as though he half expected Sam to take a swing at him there and then. “Hey, wait, let’s just back up a second. I never said anything about letting you assault me.”
“I’m not going to-”
“I bruise like a peach in this stupid vessel! Have you seen me?” He gestured incredulously down at himself - and, in all fairness, he didn’t exactly make an impressive sight first thing in the morning, sleep-mussed and boxer-clad.
“I’ll go gentle with you, I promise,” Sam muttered, rolling his eyes. “Sorry dude, but you said you wanted more independence. I mean-” He grinned. “-I wouldn’t wanna be accused of being overbearing or overprotective. Or anything.”
The archangel swore quietly.
xxx
Christmas Day arrived without fanfare, which was strange, considering it was spent in the company of angels. Sam would have thought it’d be more of a big deal to them. Kind of in the job description or something.
“Today’s date has no true religious significance,” Castiel remarked when he mentioned as much. “It was merely picked to coincide with the Yuletide winter festival in order to ease the introduction of Christianity.”
“What, so you don’t like it because it’s really just a pagan holiday?”
Gabriel cast him a scathing look. “Sorry - we’ve met, right? That honestly strike you as something I’d object to?” He shrugged. “We don’t ‘not like’ it, anyway. We don’t... anything it. It’s a date on a calendar we don’t conform to. Who cares, yanno?”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “Huh. Okay...”
“Besides,” the archangel added, words distorted around the red and white striped candy cane he was sucking on. “It’s so commercialised these days.”
xxx
The Grinch was showing that evening and they sat around the motel room watching it like some dysfunctional Christmas tableau. Cas sat on one of the beds, leaning back against the headboard and looking unusually relaxed for once. He’d borrowed one of Sam’s oversized hoodies, had the sleeves tugged down over his fingers against the slight chill in the room. Socked feet emerged from the cuffs of torn jeans, rumpling the covers, and braced against his raised knees was yet another book. He was supposedly reading it, but in fact hadn’t taken his eyes from the TV set in over forty minutes.
“This film has none of the traditional nativity symbolism,” he commented as they watched Jim Carrey in his Grinch costume prance across Mount Crumpet. “Admittedly, much of it was generally inaccurate, but I’d thought humans seemed quite set on the theme.”
Sam gave him an amused glance. He was starting to get used to the casual dismissal of Christian dogma the angels threw out so thoughtlessly. “It’s based on a children’s story, Cas,” he explained patiently. “It’s supposed to be funny and kind of surreal. And non-denominational, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel chimed in from across the room. “Christianity’s so yesterday. Get with the times, bro.”
The archangel had unfortunately taught himself how to use the microwave about a week ago, and ever since had proven little but a menace with it, apparently subscribing to the philosophy that anything edible tasted better when nuked. So far he’d managed to utterly destroy one microwave by searing melted chocolate across the interior and another by completely exploding a plastic covered ready-meal he’d forgotten to poke holes into. Sam, not in the mood to spend his Christmas scraping another culinary disaster from the floor or walls, had limited Gabriel to the simplest of tasks this time.
Currently, the appliance gave a beep of completion and Gabriel triumphantly and with far too much excitement extracted a bag of popcorn. “Honeybutter flavour,” he proclaimed proudly as an intensely sweet smell suffused the room. He shoved a handful into his mouth, clearly happy with this success.
“Where did you even get that?” Sam asked bemusedly, before deciding he didn’t want to know. “You’re going to get fat if you keep eating sweets like you used to.”
Gabriel started to wave him off, then stopped with a look of faint alarm. “You think?”
“Relax. Your girlish figure is still intact. For now.”
The archangel smirked. “Damn straight.” He strolled his way back to the couch Sam was sitting on, gracelessly threw himself down onto a cushion, and dropped his legs across Sam’s lap, crossed at the ankle.
Nonplussed, Sam gave him a look. “You’re not that girlish. Off.”
But Gabriel ignored him, preferring instead to settle himself more comfortably into the couch and turn his attention back to the movie, occasionally tossing a sticky kernel of popcorn into the air and tilting his head back to catch it. Sam sighed in defeat, already knowing better than to waste his energy on protest, and let his hands come to rest atop the invading appendages for lack of anywhere else to put them.
He felt instantly startled, and for long moments couldn’t figure out why.
At length, it occurred to him that he couldn’t remember ever having touched Gabriel out of anything but anger - and even then only once or twice. Now, despite what Dean claimed, as a general rule Sam wasn’t all that big on touching, but it was rare for him to never have made contact with a person, if only in passing. Even with Cas he had vague memories of having his hand clasped when they’d first met, or helping to steady the angel when he’d pushed his powers too far. But Gabriel...
The archangel felt strangely, jarringly human. He was loose-limbed and sprawled, kind of heavy and radiating perfectly average body heat through his thrift store jeans. He smelled like horrendously sweet popcorn and fruity shampoo from the shower; clean and male.
Flushing slightly, Sam glanced up, found Gabriel watching him. The archangel was still smirking, and as Sam blinked uncertainly back at him, he raised one eyebrow leeringly at the hand clasping his shin.
Sam let go as if burned, then struggled to conceal the involuntary movement as something else, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck and wondering faintly what the fuck had just happened. He flailed somewhat for a moment, before eventually settling on folding his arms across his chest, hands kept safely to himself this time.
Lazily, Gabriel tipped his head back and laughed, long and loud and thoroughly entertained.
xxx
And so Christmas Day departed equally unceremoniously. They didn’t exchange gifts, or decorate a tree, or do much at all differently to what they’d been doing every day since their resurrection. It was, however, a turning point of sorts. They’d come to a number of small, unspoken agreements and it left them slightly more settled in each other’s company.
Castiel fell asleep some time before midnight, comfortably engulfed in Sam’s hoodie and snoring softly atop the covers. Sam and Gabriel remained awake most of the night, drowsily watching infomercials and pleas to call seasonal help-lines. They didn’t speak often; every now and then murmuring quiet requests to pass a beer or change the channel. The TV-lit darkness was strangely intimate, almost hypnotic, and at some point during the wee hours of the morning, Sam came back to himself just long enough to take note of Gabriel’s toes curled against his thigh, his own hand having moved to encircle an ankle, one finger barely brushing warm skin.
xxx
“I think I’m dying. Fuck, you ruptured something. You’ve killed me again, I don’t believe this...”
Sam rolled his eyes and took a drink from his water bottle. “You’re not dying, Gabriel. You just had to do a little work for the first time in your life.”
Castiel, from where he was propped up against the car with his hands braced against his thighs, managed to pant, “Dean once said that without exercise... he believed I’d grow... ‘flabby’.”
Gabriel groaned and rolled over onto his back in the grass, one arm flung across his eyes. “I swear, if he recites one more bit of wisdom from the Gospel According to Winchester, I’m going to duct-tape him again...”
Sam snorted, unable to say he’d put much effort into stopping him.
They were out in a field in the middle of nowhere, chosen for the sole purpose of privacy while Sam attempted to teach them to fight the human way. To say the least, they weren’t exactly naturals. Neither Jimmy nor the archangel’s unidentified vessel had been particularly fit individuals in life, which now meant that neither were Cas or Gabriel. In fairness, Sam supposed, they were soldiers, as Castiel had once angrily reminded him. And they had at one point known how to handle themselves skilfully and with deadly force. But that had been back when they were angels - essentially, back when they were part of a whole different existence; a whole different species, even. It was as if they’d come ready equipped with millennia worth of theoretical knowledge, but lacked the muscle memory, strength or stamina that usually accompanied it. It left them slow and clumsy and quick to tire, much to their mutual frustration.
Cas was still recovering from his sparring session over ten minutes ago, throughout which Gabriel had jeered and laughed as the younger angel faltered and swiftly lost the upper hand. He had, in fact, continued laughing right up until it was his turn, and Sam had at last been presented with an opportunity to make him really regret that Herpexia commercial...
Now, as Sam grinned innocently down at him, Gabriel struggled up from the prone position he’d been put in. He sat on the ground for a moment looking dazed, and then raised one hand into the air as though volunteering for something. “Okay. I’m done. I quit. I wanna be an angel again.”
Laughing, Sam reached out and grabbed the waving hand, hauling the other easily to his feet. Gabriel stumbled straight into him and Sam clasped his shoulders to prop him up before turning back towards Castiel.
“So, we done here or are either of you up for another round?”
The angels shared a dark look, and without a word Castiel opened the nearest car door and retreated inside to finish catching his breath. He no longer seemed quite as impressed by the venture as he had been a few days ago when Sam had first suggested it.
Gabriel didn’t just look disillusioned so much as utterly miserable. “I mean it,” he insisted to no one in particular. “Being human is awful, why do you do this to yourselves?!”
“Not really something we have a lot of choice in-”
“I meant hunters!” the archangel snapped. “Man, I have a whole new respect for you guys. Why didn’t you tell me it felt like this? I’m over it, kiddo, I promise. You can keep that profession all to yourself.”
He was limping slightly from where Sam had kicked the back of his knee, so, taking pity, the human reached out to hold his elbow. It earned him another quirked eyebrow, but Gabriel didn’t shake off the support as they made their way over to join Cas in the car.
He did, however, comment, “You’re getting awfully handsy of late.”
Embarrassed at being so bluntly called out, Sam immediately released him. “Sorry. I, uh...”
Amber eyes danced mischievously. “I didn’t say to stop.”
xxx
Sam knew better than to take Gabriel’s flirting seriously.
The archangel hit on most things that moved, a number of which he himself was responsible for snapping into existence. His idea of a fling was with a psychotic goddess of destruction who’d tried to kill him, and his suicide note took the form of a porn DVD. Hell, he’d borderline flirted with Dean back when they’d first met (before the antagonism had set in), and it wasn’t like this was the first time he’d thrown the odd suggestive comment Sam’s way, either.
So yeah, Sam knew he couldn’t take Gabriel’s winks and smirks and innuendoes to heart. To be honest, he suspected it was nothing personal anyway.
He’d been around enough Fallen or Falling angels to know they always eventually tried to fill up the gap where Grace should go with something else, like angelic methadone or something (and wow, there was knowledge he never thought he’d come to possess). With Cas it had been alcohol, and then the pain pills Dean had unthinkingly given him and which Sam had later confiscated - but other examples sprung to mind too. Anna had had her drawings; the medications they’d given her on the psych ward; the thoughtless, needy affection she’d offered Dean and even Ruby. There was Uriel with his misguided allegiance, Zachariah with his politics. Even Lucifer had resorted to gathering anger and resentment close to him like they could somehow stop up the leaking wounds in his Grace - but Sam didn’t like remembering that.
Unfortunately, Gabriel’s track record said he’d inevitably try to fill the gap with sex, and there was really no getting around that.
Nor was there any getting around the fact that Sam was the only available company unrelated to him, so of course he was going to become the target of flirtation sooner or later. But the real problem came if and when Gabriel took it a step further and actually expected Sam to be his methadone. Now, Sam was an educated, open-minded college guy, so it wasn’t that he had anything per se against gay (angel) sex. He just didn’t think it was for him, is all.
(And besides, Sam was already in enough trouble after committing the vaguely Faustian sin of fucking a demon. He didn’t particularly relish the thought of well and truly cementing his place in Hell by defiling an archangel, too. Even if Gabriel was already kind of slutty.)
One way or another, it all came back to the fact that Sam really shouldn’t be encouraging him just because Gabriel’s humanity, the newfound physicality of it, was abruptly something fascinating to him. He didn’t even know why it was fascinating - only that, before, taking the liberty to casually touch the archangel would have been unthinkable. Now, it wasn’t. Now it was easy.
Still. That was no excuse to go about giving off the wrong signals.
Gabriel would get the idea on his own eventually, and they could happily keep to the fine Winchester tradition of Not Talking about things. After that, Sam’s only problem would be keeping the archangel away from hookers - and oh god, Sam suddenly realised, he was going to have to teach him to use protection. Jesus Christ. He made a mental note to buy condoms and some kind of phallic vegetable, physically wincing at the indignity of the prospect.
xxx
Even as little as a week ago, if asked to put money on the matter, Gabriel would have bet that Dean would be the more entertaining Winchester to hang out with. Sure, he might be an insolent, boneheaded, smart-mouthed jackass for the most part, but he was a jackass after Gabriel’s own heart. The kind of guy he could get a drink and ogle women with, both of them comfortable in the knowledge they were simultaneously plotting to screw the other over. (There was a small chance he and Dean were far too alike to ever truly get along.)
Sam, in comparison, was easy to think uptight. He was methodical where his brother was rash and reckless, angry where Dean would be quick to deflect with humour. In all the time he’d known him, Gabriel had counted at least twenty subtle variations on the bitchface (no exaggeration) and more ways than he’d ever thought possible to inject pure exasperation into one-word utterances. He was controlling, self-righteous, and Gabriel hadn’t been being entirely theatrical when he’d said Sam was like Luci. Okay, fair enough, he wouldn’t go quite so far as to say Sam was in danger of going down the same dark path his Fallen brother had (at least not anymore), but yeah. There was the odd similarity. It might even go a ways to explaining how Sam had always been so effortlessly able to put Gabriel’s back up. Being brought back to life, for example, while great and all, had been slightly dampened by the realisation that he’d also been made powerless and placed into the care of the one human who’d always in equal parts fascinated and infuriated him.
It was only very recently in the scheme of things he’d fully come to understand the appeal of Sam Winchester.
Kid had an understated sense of humour that tickled Gabriel, once he’d learned to appreciate it. He was sarcastic and scathing and very occasionally immature. Furthermore, to Gabriel’s delighted surprise, he wasn’t at all above prank wars.
This discovery was made when Gabriel, in all genuine innocence, had accidentally spilt soda across the bed Sam was supposed to be sleeping in. Like some involuntary defensive reflex, Sam had promptly put salt in his cereal. After that, Gabriel really hadn’t seen any other choice but to respond by systematically microwaving the crap out of Sam’s stupid stash of health food and leaving it to smoulder. Sam, in turn, had spitefully cancelled his subscription to Casa Erotica, which was completely below the belt in all the wrong ways.
Castiel finally put a stop to the swiftly escalating war when he intercepted Gabriel trying to purchase laxatives online. Ever the voice of reason, he demanded to know how and why they’d regressed to such a hostile relationship.
Overhearing, Sam laughed like he couldn’t help himself. “It’s not... really hostility, Cas. Just pranks, yanno?”
“Signs of affection, you might say,” Gabriel added, with an eyebrow wiggle that confused Castiel and made Sam glare.
His brother processed this for a second or two before asking, “You mean like the time Dean placed the... ‘whoopee cushion’ on my chair?” And oh, Gabriel would have paid good money to have played witness to that, or at least have the anecdote done justice.
But Sam only smiled and said, “Yeah, exactly. Just like that.”
Castiel looked quietly pleased, like he’d at last found the answer to something that had been puzzling him for a while.
The small moment of nostalgia was broken when Gabriel leaned over and hissed to Sam, “Wow, your brother really needs to work on his courting techniques.”
Sam just looked at him, but Gabriel didn’t pick up on the irony.
xxx
There were other thing about Sam that he was starting to like, too, for all that even he could tell this was a bad idea.
Sam would bitch and bitch about Gabriel’s unhealthy eating habits, and yet would invariably bring him something sweet for breakfast, toss him bags of M&Ms whenever he left a gas station, and do nothing more than frown in mild reprimand whenever Gabriel left all the vegetables on his plate untouched. Shocker: Sam was an enabler.
He was also a closeted bad-TV enthusiast, which Gabriel heartily approved of. Dean might have his little vice of Doctor Sexy MD, but Sam knew all the characters from Gilmore Girls, had watched Stonehenge Apocalypse at least three times, and could sit through a marathon of any procedural cop show you cared to name. Not that he’d admit to any of this, of course. Gabriel had only discovered it through a process of careful experimentation, goading, and gambling for TV privileges.
Now, as a general rule, Gabriel harboured an inordinate fondness for the human female form - but that wasn’t to say he was blind to what was in front of him, and it wasn’t like he was particularly hung up on the concept of gender (most angels weren’t, technically genderless themselves). And any way you sliced it, Sam was pretty damn easy on the eyes even regardless of his unfortunate lack of boobs. He had ‘tall, dark and brooding’ off to a fine art, and Gabriel was even quite partial to the ludicrous height difference between them. Sam was powerful by human standards, and it was strangely thrilling to feel small and dominated in the presence of that power (he’d discovered as much during their sparring match when Sam had pinned him without having to try, leading to a somewhat inappropriate physical reaction on Gabriel’s part that was sadly no longer under his conscious control).
Point was, he’d noticed. Crushing on Sam hadn’t exactly been on his To Do list at any point, but it seemed it was a little too late to do anything about it now.
xxx
It was, unfortunately, entirely possible that Gabriel had grown a little too distracted in noticing Sam. It was even possible that Sam, as well, had grown distracted in his determined effort not to acknowledge Gabriel noticing him. So it took a while - far longer than it should have - for either of them to become aware of the change in Castiel’s demeanour.
Only gradually did it dawn on them that he’d once again grown quiet, backsliding into the same despondent silence he’d first exhibited immediately after their resurrection. He read less, and resumed being distant and standoffish, withdrawing more often to the privacy of the car and taking so much longer in the shower that for the first time Sam started considering getting them more than one room. Neither he nor Gabriel, however, really took the time they probably should have to consider the implications of such behaviour.
In fact, it took the discovery that his entire supply of painkillers was missing for Sam to realise exactly how bad things had gotten while he’d been looking the other way.
He was busy, at the time, trying to ignore Gabriel’s pestering.
“Sam. Saaaam. Hey Sammy. I’m bored. We should do something tomorrow. There’s gotta be some tourist traps around here somewhere. Oh, hey, let’s go see the future birthplace of James T. Kirk...”
It was late evening and Sam was tired, more concerned with finding some loose change in his bag so he could go get a coke than listening to whatever the archangel was talking about this time. He unzipped the side pocket where he kept smaller possessions that were valuable or useful to have on hand, mentally cataloguing his wallet, the car keys, the room key, his phone, the roll of quarters he’d been looking for, and a handful of pens. The little bottle of pain pills that he’d stashed there only the day before, however, was conspicuously absent.
“...and you saw that last movie, right? Chris Pine was-”
“Shit!”
Gabriel jumped in surprise as Sam surged to his feet. “What? What’s wrong?”
“They’re gone. Fuck, fuck, where’s Cas?”
“He’s where he always is: out in the car. And what exactly is gone?”
Sam was already darting out of the room, snapping behind him, “The pills are gone, Gabriel, and let’s just say your brother has a history.”
“Who, Castiel?!” Disbelieving and incredulous (and not the least bit alarmed, not at all) he followed the human out of the motel, jogging after him when Sam broke into a run across the parking lot. A distance away, he could see the car lit up from the inside, Castiel in the front seat with his head bowed, and Gabriel’s newly human heart stuttered uncomfortably against his ribs.
Sam reached the car and immediately threw the door open, braced for anything - only to find Castiel apparently waiting for him, the bottle of painkillers held out expectantly between two steady fingers. “I didn’t take any,” the angel said quietly, without looking up.
Sam snatched them, checking them over and finding the bottle was indeed still full. He sagged in relief, smacking a hand hard against the roof of the car as all his adrenaline abruptly lost its focus. “Jesus Christ, Cas, what the hell?!”
Gabriel caught up, bemused and faintly panicked. “Okay, someone wanna explain the deal with the intervention?”
“He has a substance abuse problem, to put it mildly,” Sam shot back caustically. “Not a massive issue back when he was an angel, sure - but you’re human right now, Cas! You could have fucking overdosed on this shit!”
“I realised that,” Castiel answered calmly, finally raising his gaze to meet theirs. “That’s why I refrained from consuming any, as I said. I wasn’t intentionally trying to harm myself, if that’s your concern.”
Sam hadn’t been thinking that. Not really. Not consciously. What he had been thinking was that Castiel had always been oddly prone to addiction and excess (the alcohol, the pills, even the goddamn burgers) and Sam knew first-hand how hard those types of things were to quit once started. He couldn’t handle it - wouldn’t have the first clue how to handle it - if Cas messed himself up like that while Sam was supposed to be looking out for him.
“Jeez, bro, way to scare the crap out of us...” Gabriel sounded more pissed off than anything, absently rubbing the heel of his hand against his chest.
Castiel did look contrite at that, fingers twisting in the cuffs of his jacket sleeves. “I apologise. I didn’t-”
“What were you going to do?! Why did you even need-?!” Sam furiously cut himself off. He knew better than to expect any kind of rational answer to a question like that, remembering all too well exactly how he’d felt back then in the wake of Dean’s death: the tempting, temporary relief Ruby’s blood had offered him, his own grief and desperation so crushing he hadn’t cared how obscene a habit it was, so long as it took the edge off.
He just hadn’t realised Castiel was in a place like that; miserably wondered how he could have missed it.
Castiel got out of the car, slipping past Sam without meeting his eyes. “It won’t happen again,” was all he said by way of reassurance, and then he was walking away, back towards the motel.
Sam was left standing there at a loss, unsure what to do with all the angry exhilaration still pumping through him. He half wanted to go after Cas and physically shake some sense into him, at the same time knowing it wouldn’t help in the least. This must be what it was like to have teenagers, he imagined with vague hysteria. Only these were teenagers who really did know infinitely more about the universe than he ever would - none of it practical.
Eventually, he sank down onto the seat Castiel had vacated, feet planted in the gravel outside the car, elbows resting heavily on his knees. “...Shit.”
Gabriel hovered nearby uncertainly, hands hidden in his pockets. “You okay, kiddo?”
Sam made a cynical noise in his throat. “Not me you should be asking.” He hung his head and ran fingers through his hair, pulling. “I thought he was doing okay. I mean, god knows things aren’t ideal, but...”
“You’re overreacting,” Gabriel tried half-heartedly. “You heard him, he wasn’t purposely trying-”
“But he will,” Sam interrupted with quiet certainty. “He’ll end up doing something stupid, even if he doesn’t mean to. Trust me.”
They considered this in grim silence.
At length, Gabriel sighed and said, “Listen. When I... When I Fell, it was willingly. I made a choice; got to be exactly what I wanted to be, even if no one else liked it.” Sam looked up at him, grudgingly curious, so he went on. “Castiel didn’t get the same choice. He Fell only because he got kicked out of Heaven by our dickwad brothers. He Fell because he was being the little angel that could, doing the right thing when no one else would step up.”
“...What’s your point?”
“My point is, none of that meant he ever wanted to end up human. Don’t get me wrong, he loves you guys - some, admittedly, quite a bit more than others - but he’s an angel, Sam, and he’s not meant to be anything else. Me - well. In all honesty, there are worse things I could imagine than getting stuck like this - but like I said, at least I chose to Fall. He didn’t.” He let this sink in, then went for the clincher. “And let’s face it: not to put too fine a point on things, but you sort of took away the one thing that could have made it better when you said he couldn’t go see your stupid brother.”
Sam looked stricken. “You think this is my fault?”
Gabriel shrugged reluctantly. “Just saying it like I see it, kiddo. Sorry.”
“I can’t take him back to Dean. I just can’t. You don’t get it. Giving Dean this normal life, this normal family he loves... It’s the only thing I’ve ever been able to do for him that’s really meant something. That... wasn’t selfish. I can’t take that back now.”
The archangel scuffed a sneaker through the gravel. “Your call, I guess. You know my opinion on the matter.”
Sam shook his head, although it looked like it pained him to do so. “I can’t take him to Dean,” he repeated, convincing himself. “But you’re right. He needs to be an angel again, and we’re not making any progress getting you guys back to normal like this. We need help.”
“Oh?”
“We’ll... I suppose we gotta go see Bobby. He’s the only person I can think of that knows anything remotely accurate about angels.” Sam bit his lip, laced his fingers together between his knees. “And clearly I’m not cut out to do this on my own, so...”
Gabriel’s first instinctive reaction was satisfaction. This was a victory he’d been working towards; another step towards restoring his Grace. He’d met Robert Singer only once before, and most of that interaction had consisted of Gabriel aiming a chainsaw-wielding maniac in the old hunter’s direction - but by reputation alone, he knew Bobby was probably the closest that humans would ever come to having an expert on his kind. If any human was going to figure out how to put him right - well. Sam and Bobby were his two best bets.
But he also knew Sam hadn’t wanted to go back. Still didn’t, judging by the look of him.
For whatever misguided reasons, Sam was convinced it’d all be for the best if he left that old life behind, went his own way and didn’t impose on the people who were no doubt still grieving for him. Fucked up kid - but then he was a Winchester.
Gabriel sighed and stepped closer, coming to stand right in front of where Sam was hunched in the car. Without thinking about it, he reached out and brushed his hand over the human’s bowed head, fingers immediately tangling themselves in the unruly mop of hair. Sam went tense, broad shoulders bunching in protest, but Gabriel ignored him. He smoothed out some of the knotted strands between his fingers and nothing more.
It could have been a come-on; a follow up to the fine groundwork he’d been busy laying for the past few days. He could have made it inappropriate very easily.
But it wasn’t and he didn’t. Instead, with effort, he summoned up whatever last dregs of Grace still remained in him (it was an action that might even have been entirely in his imagination; he wasn’t sure) and tried to remember how to communicate it through the small gesture. Wordlessly, he offered the only comfort he could think of: the benediction of a Fallen archangel - for whatever it was worth.
Sam let out a breath, tension and protest seeping away in defeat. He turned his head as though pressing into the contact without wanting to, and Gabriel smiled slightly as he combed the longest strands back behind his ears and then withdrew, stepping away and resuming his slouched posture as if nothing had happened. Might as well let the kid ignore it if he wanted to.
They were quiet for a long time after that before the other spoke.
“If we do go back... I don’t want him to tell Dean,” Sam lied quietly, eyes down.
“I’ll put all my considerable charms to work convincing him not to,” Gabriel promised, knowing full well he’d do no such thing. Sam knew it too, though he voiced no objection. Truth was, no matter what he said on the matter, kid wanted more than anything for Dean to know he was back, even if it meant the demise of his brother’s precious Apple Pie life. Sam just didn’t want to be the one to strike the killing blow, and would be more than happy for Bobby to take on that responsibility behind his back. He’d never admit as much, but in that moment they both knew it.
And there was a certain cowardice there, Gabriel thought to himself; a certain selfishness. But they were the type of flaws Sam would never be without, no matter how good his intentions, and Gabriel figured he could live with that well enough, since he had them too.
Part 4