A.N.
Somehow the lyrics to Live's 'the Distance' triggered my Muse, so I added them where I thought they fit.
Underlined Italics is said lyrics
Bold is emphasised
Italics is thoughts or prayers
Bold Italics is dreams
Here we go
-oOo-
Let him come into the city,
Let him find his lucky penny,
Let him put it in his pocket and shake it all around.
Even thought had seen the DVD with Gabriel's final message, Sam still had hopes. He still regarded any 'weird, even for Hunters' case with hope in his heart. He once voiced those hopes to Dean, only to get that sympathic look and a sad: "I know you hope he survived, Sam, but what are the odds? He went up against Lucifer. Even a wily Trickster slash Archangel like him had slim chances."
So, Sam never mentioned Gabriel to Dean again.
Instead he prayed to the Archangel in silence.
'Gabriel, Messenger of God. Hear me, please. Please be there. I'm so sorry we got you hurt... but please, just be ok. I keep trying to catch Trickster cases, just so we can meet again. Just so I can see with my own eyes that you're ok.'
He felt so guilty about leaving the angel alone to fight his big brother.
*****
I've been to pretty buildings,
All in search of you.
I have lit all the candles,
And sat in all the pews.
After a few months, Sam began to think his prayers simply didn't come through, because Gabriel must be weak and Sam wasn't praying in church. The residual belief in there had to give prayers an extra boost, right?
So, whenever he could, Sam would sneak to the nearest church. Baptist, Presbeterian, Catholic, Protestant... didn't matter.
He'd go in, bow his head reverantly, dip his fingers in the Holy water and make a cross, or light a candle, or whatever was appropriate in that particular church, then sink in one of the abysmally hard pews and pray.
His prayers didn't vary much in the beginning. He never stopped feeling guilty, even though Gabriel had hurt him more than anything, until Lucifer got him in the cage.
Not counting the 18 months, he had run around Soulless, Sam dilligently kept up his visits to houses of worship.
Steadily though, his prayers wandered off into more conversation like things.
'Gabriel, it's Sam Winchester. Look, I know we were dicks, ok, but your brother Castiƫl, the guy who got Dean out of Hell, he is acting weird. Raphael is still opting for the Apocalypse, and Cas tries to stop him, but I'm afraid he is getting out of line. We could use your Trickster mind to try and diffuse things.'
But for all his bruised knees, Sam got bupkis.
*****
The desert had been done before,
But I didn't even care.
I got sand in both my shoes
And scorpions in my hair.
The world kept falling apart, and the Winchester brothers and Cas kept patching her up.
Sam got tougher, hardened by all the things that happened to him, the disappointments that kept hitting.
But he never gave up on trying to find Gabriel. His guilt lessened a bit. Logically, he knew Gabriel couldn't be alive, but on the other hand, the guy had eluded Heaven for centuries.
Researching Tricksters, Sam ended up visiting Native American Holy Grounds.
He sat there on his knees and prayed, not to Gabriel, but to Loki, Coyote, Anansi, Reynard, whichever trickstergod he could think of.
Dean was still not aware of Sam's proclivity to haunt sacred sites.
At times he would wonder aloud how his big galoot of a brother got such sandy shoes from a trip to the library, or how it was possible to get grass or pineneedle stains on your jeans, reading a book.
Sam just shrugged and ignored him.
