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The bunker wasn’t entirely soundproof. During the night you could hear shifting steps, and maybe mumbled up voices from the corridor. It was what kept Sam awake. Not because he was sensitive or anything. No-one who has spent their whole life living in seedy motels thinks twice about some dull life noises. Sam had learned to distinguish the sound of a squeaky bed way before he knew the reason why beds in motels were ever so rusty.
Sam could hear Gabriel down the hall. He could make up some words when came past his door, but not the context. He was talking to Castiel, who was still giving him the tour. Showing all the knick knacks and stuff in a true Castiel way - painstaking and pedantic. Perhaps Gabriel would find the Men of Letters -style secret agent vibe neat. Or was that too much of a Trickster trait? Real Gabriel had a flair for cinematic drama regardless if he was just posing or not.
Funny thought, that. They didn’t really know Gabriel as Gabriel now did they? Sam had thought, a long time ago, that he had pinned him down as a hedonistic joker with a cruel sense of humor. Guess he never had shed that image off his head.
Sam took a deep breath and held it still for a while. His heart was beating fast for some reason. Not the first time it had happened, he often woke up in this yucky icy feeling of unease, and this was much like that. Not a real panic attack, Sam had had those. Not a nightmare either, because Sam didn’t see dreams anymore.
It was making him sweat ice.
Did you know you can stop dreaming? If you stop having anything to dream of there is nothing to show. Or at least, Sam was so tired of the nightmares. He just... skipped imagination all together. His sleep was mostly blank, void of any substance. It was better than being tortured inside his own head over and over again. But after a while it does feel… hollow.
His heart doing the cabaret was probably just a fucking anxiety bullsit. Sam closed his eyes and focused on breathing slowly in and even more slowly out. Didn’t do much. Didn’t hurt either.
You see, there was a picture in the back of his mind, the first time in ages. Familiar one too, in a way, something that Sam had actively decided not to think about. Only Rowena had seen it too.
The true face of an Archangel.
Sam let out the breath he was again holding despite him not wanting to, as a mild whining sob. And the muffled speech in the hallway seized.
The next day was all and all weird. Sam felt like he had spilled something that he supposed he shouldn’t have. Castiel was awkward, but that’s Castiel for you. Gabriel was in a damn knot, trying to play it off like nothing. Not even Dean was buying his bullshit, but said nothing about it.
“How soon you’ll be all juiced up?” said Dean instead with a caffeine deprived edge on his voice. Gabriel was quite good at hiding his fidgeting. Quite.
“Oh, I dunno”, Gabriel shrugged.
“You don’t know?” Dean spat. “How often Asmodeus was milking you for kicks?”
“Wow”, said Gabriel incredibly sarcastic. “You should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, if I don’t fry you the first thing I get into my groove.”
“Yeah, yeah. Groove me, Kylie. Whatever”, said Dean and you should have seen Castiel’s frown. Or Sam’s frown for that matter!
“Are you guys… bantering?” Sam asked. Gabriel looked roughly as puzzled as he did. His eyes seemed to switch between several only a millisecond long expressions, till he landed on a light smile. Maybe things will be good.
Sam was sleeping better the next night and one after that. But something had changed. He was still waking up every now and then, but the unease wasn’t there the same way that it was. He couldn’t recall seeing any dreams… but he had this odd sense he was, though.
One night, less than a week after Gabriel had moved into the bunker, and while Rowena was still tinkering with her new and improved spell casting, Sam heard a knock on his door. Not like a Dean’s knock, which was always impatient and sharp. This one was almost like a question.
“Yeah?” said Sam. Gabriel opened the door.
“Heya”, he said, wearing this black droopy T-shirt as his jammies. Unlike Castiel, Gabriel not only changed his wardrobe, but did it in a wholly expressive way. Right now he looked like a teary-eyed little kid.
“Can I.. come in?”
“Uh… sure?” said Sam. He was flustered all of a sudden. Not that his room had anything particularly incriminating laying around (UNLIKE Dean’s). But it did suddenly feel weird to have someone in. Not to mention that he was undressed and unkempt. Gabriel looked vaguely upset, but it was difficult to pinpoint as such. Sam didn’t have a spare chair in his room.
“Wanna talk about it?” Sam asked. Gabriel made some weird wheezing noise.
“I just… I dunno. Let me stay for a while? I know it’s… awkward and dumb di dum dum, but ugh...” Gabriel sighed and walked right next to Sam’s tall dresser chest. He pressed his back against a wall and slid down in a same position he had been when Ketch had found him. Sam had tried to make him feel somewhat better by giving one of the nicer and bigger rooms to him. Guess it had still felt like entrapment. He had been so small. He still was.
"You don’t have to be on the floor”, said Sam.
“Oh Jesus Half-Brother Christ… that’s a start of a romance novel, Sammy – 'this room has only one bed!' Popular on the interwebs too, wink-wink, nudge-nudge”, said Gabriel.
“If you’re gonna talk about internet erotica I’m gonna have to ask you to leave”, Sam stated as he was really not in the mood of Gabriel’s explicitly well painted tales of his porno days.
“Spoilsport”, said Gabriel. Was he honestly that into porn, or was it a ruse to mess with people? Who was the Archangel Gabriel really? When he climbed into Sam’s bed and under his covers he didn't feel like a man. More like a... dancing wavelength.
“Huh?” said Sam.
“What? What are you looking at?”
Sam concentrated real hard, focusing on Gabriel’s eyes. But his sight went past that, somehow.
This is how Lucifer flashed his face to Sam too. In the Cage, tied up in each other like snakes wrapping around their restless, legless bodies.
In Hell, Sam barely had a body. He was in there with Lucifer in person, so to say, only when he wished him to be tortured. Lucifer could touch his soul by turning his flesh into these impossible abominations existing only in the Pit. He’d drape himself all over Sam, coddle him by force and tell him there’s no way out. So why not enjoy it? It was an embrace, afterall.
It’s the only pleasure you’ll ever have.
“You should have told me that I can’t come to your bed”, said Gabriel with a such a nice, tender tone. He wasn’t touching Sam, but he was close. His warmth felt under the covers. Sam couldn’t look away. He couldn’t even blink.
“I see your face”, he said.
“And it’s hurting you, I get it”, Gabriel frowned and wiped his forehead. Nothing he did could hide the nova beyond flesh.
He was right, that it did hurt. In a same way than looking directly in the sun hurts. But it was nothing, nothing like Lucifer’s cold hail of ice white shine. Instead, Gabriel was a warm, terrifying flame. You couldn’t embrace it and be left unburned.
“I am so scared, Gabriel”, Sam cried. Gabriel moved. He hesitated. And then kissed Sam’s head. A burn Sam never wanted to end. Cold sweat heated into a hot puddle.
Sam eventually fell asleep. It was filled with all the dreams he had not seen before. Like a sole survivor of a harsh winter Sam took the summer to his arms. Intertwined his fingers willingly to it’s golden sienna wings.
“You may let go, if you want to”, said Gabriel, in a dream.
“But I don’t”, said Sam and it was strange how much joy he felt from that, even though it was the face of an Archangel that had kept him from resting for so long.
FIN