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“Last time I checked, humans weren’t nocturnal.”
Sam half-jumped at the voice, jolting upright in his seat as he caught sight of the figure stood in the doorway. Gabriel looked back at him, head tilted slightly to the side.
Sam’s shirt swamped Gabriel, hanging baggy off his small frame and covering the majority of his boxer shorts. The archangel hadn’t thought to invest in something to sleep in, and didn’t have the grace to spare on something so simple, so Sam had offered up a few of his old shirts.
Something protective and warm twisted in Sam’s chest as he looked over Gabriel, fresh from sleep, hair mussed and eyes heavy.
“Yeah, well, neither are archangels,” Sam replied, closing his book. His attention had drifted a chapter ago, tiredness creeping on the edge of his mind.
“Touché.”
An uneasy silence hung between them - Sam watched as Gabriel glanced around the room, his gaze vacant. The archangel looked lost, like he wasn’t entirely certain why he was there, or what he was doing.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Sam asked eventually. Gabriel blinked his eyes, shifting from distant to alert, focusing his attention on Sam. His lips pulled into thin line, uncertain and guarded.
“Not really. Do you?”
Sam shook his head. “No,” he said.
There was a distinct difference between the Gabriel Sam thought he knew, and the Gabriel in front of him now. This Gabriel was subdued and less animated, tired to the bone from endless years of life. It was as though the Gabriel they’d known till now was a caricature of himself, an exaggeration of every trait till he seemed larger than life.
This Gabriel was jarringly human.
It struck Sam just how little he actually knew about Gabriel. How, every time he thought he had the archangel unravelled, another layer pulled back to reveal a more intricate puzzle.
“Don’t just stand there, Gabe,” Sam said. Something flashed over Gabriel’s face at the nickname, but it was gone before Sam could place it. “Come sit down.”
Gabriel complied, crossing the room in almost perfect silence. Sam raised an eyebrow as the chair beside him began to pull out of its own accord - it wasn’t quite the reality bending Sam knew the archangel capable of, but it was the first he’d seen Gabriel exercise his grace since the encounter with Asmodeus.
Sam shifted uncomfortably as Gabriel studied him, the gold of his eyes seeming more intense and inhuman up close. “You called me Gabe,” he said after a moment, his tone guarded and steady.
“Oh, uh, yeah. If you don’t like it, I c-”
“No,” Gabriel cut him off, shaking his head. “It’s fine. It’s nice. Casual. I like it.”
Sam let out a short laugh in relief as the archangel slouched back in his seat, the edges of his lips curving up into a smile. “Well, you seem to have plenty of names for all of us. Figured if you were joining the team, we’d need one for you.”
“I think Dean-o already has plenty for me,” Gabriel replied, his mouth spreading into a smirk.
“I don’t think son of a bitch, feathered asshole, winged jackass or dumbass archangel quite have the same ring.”
That got a genuine bark of laughter out of Gabriel, the corners of his eyes crinkling as his head tilted back. Something in Sam wanted to make Gabriel laugh like that till the end of time - he wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Sam saw as the switch flipped in Gabriel’s mind, as he cut off his laughter and caught himself.
“Y’know, you, Sam, are truly something else,” Gabriel said. Sam recognised the caricature mask going up - Gabriel grinned like he had no cares, but there was something darker threaded through his words, something primal just behind his eyes. “I’m a cruel, bitter, ancient thing. You know better than most. I’ve done awful things to you and Dean, unforgivable things, and yet here you sit, trying to make me smile. I’m almost as old as time itself, with power you could never comprehend, and you gave me a nickname.”
Ah.
Sam knew this particular tactic well.
Build up the mental fortress walls, push everyone away in any way possible, even if it means hurting them, because long term, it’s better for them.
Sam folded his arms across his chest and sighed. “That’s not going to work on me, you know,” he replied. Gabriel tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “I know exactly what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work.”
“I have no id-”
Gabriel cut himself off, brows knitting together in disbelief when Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Sure you don’t,” Sam retorted, and Gabriel shut his mouth, confused. “Look, I won’t deny that you did some shitty things. I hated you for a while, but the more we found out about you, the more I understood. I doubt I’ll ever forget, but I forgave you a long time ago.”
“I don’t need your forgiveness,” Gabriel snapped back. The mask was still there, but it was cracked, true colours shining through. Sam saw the thinly-veiled self-loathing hidden underneath the retort.
“I know you don’t, Gabe,” Sam said softly, his voice dropping in volume. The moment the nickname fell from his lips, Sam saw Gabriel’s facade shatter into pieces, exposing the raw emotion underneath. “But you have it anyways.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because I know how powerless and vulnerable and afraid you feel, and I want to help.”
Gabriel froze, his expression empty and neutral, and for a moment, Sam worried that maybe he’d pushed too far too soon.
“Every night, Sam. Every time I close my eyes, I’m back in that place. Everything hurts and I can’t speak, and I get so scared that it’s real, that I never got out, and I- I just-”
Gabriel closed his eyes, jaw clenching as he tried to swallow down his emotions. Sam noticed the finger tracing back and forth across the curve of his bottom lip, a small habit to keep himself grounded in reality, and sighed.
Sam laid his hand atop Gabriel’s still one, wincing sympathetically as he felt the involuntary twitch of muscles at the unexpected touch. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to, y’know,” Sam said, not entirely certain how to word his thoughts. “Gabriel, look at me?”
Despite the gentleness in Sam’s voice, it still sounded like a command. Gabriel drew a shuddered breath as he opened his eyes, looking up at the hunter, pushing down the flight response that was edging into his thoughts.
“It won’t ever go away fully, I’d be lying if I said it did. But it will get easier to deal with, and you’re not alone in this.”
“I’m just so tired, Sam,” Gabriel said, his voice cracking on Sam’s name. Sam felt his heart tear a little at that, and shuffled around on his seat to face Gabriel, opening his arms.
The archangel hesitated at first, aware of how vulnerable he already felt, before letting himself fall against Sam’s chest, his arms curling tight around Sam’s back. One of Sam’s hands splayed out across his upper back, whilst the other cradled the back of his head - Gabriel hated how safe the human could make him feel, how weak he truly was, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull away.
Kind touch hadn’t exactly been in bountiful supply for the past few years, and even before that, everything was driven by lust or need. Never care or love. “I’m just so tired,” Gabriel mumbled into Sam’s chest, muffled by the plaid shirt.
“I know. It’ll get easier, Gabe, I promise.”