Breath

by UnityGhost

"I was just low enough on grace that I needed to breathe, but not so low that I'd be a goner if I didn't. Which meant that Asmodeus could keep me in there as long as he wanted and he wouldn't lose me. So I couldn't breathe, but I couldn't die either."

Part 16 of Post-Asmodeus Sabriel Feels. PersonFace over on Archive of Our Own requested a story about Gabriel discovering that the angel blade may be dangerous for a low-grace archangel.

Work is often posted on Archive and Tumblr first, because I have a little trouble with formatting here. I seem to be having better luck with it lately, so fingers crossed - and thanks for reading!

WARNING: this story does contain reference to sexual assault.

The attic, hushed and enclosed, had a funereal air about it. Sam's head was bent, almost scraping the diagonal slope of the ceiling, as he shifted through photographs from Men of Letters' long-forgotten research. So far they had found snapshots of everything from formal gatherings in the bunker to samples of human anatomy.

For Sam, some of it counted as practical information. Privately, however, he enjoyed these glimpses into his heritage - however bloody they might be.

"This is some funky shizz," said Gabriel, seated across from Sam, as he turned over a photograph of swans gliding across a wintry lake. "Check out the caption: 'Outlandish aggression observed among flock. Per autospical dismemberment following administration of bread tainted with arsenic, behavioral aberrations cannot be accounted for physiologically. Possession of Cygnini by deceased vengeful avian peers likely.' Bet these guys were great at parties."

"Can you imagine any of this crew as parents?" remarked Dean from Sam's right. "Kids knowing how to dissect a rooster before they start kindergarten?"

"That's not what happened to Dad," Sam reminded him.

"Yeah, well, no way he wasn't one in a million." Dean shuffled through the next few, putting aside those that he thought might have useful pieces of knowledge, and placing the less relevant pictures - the casual, the candid, the ones Sam wanted to see - back in their boxes. "I bet not one of these black-tie Muppets got laid before thirty."

"I say we magnify the photos," announced Gabriel, "And whoever is the first to spot a purity ring gets to make Sam do all their laundry for a week."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "What if I'm the first one to spot a ring?"

"You won't be. Dean and I have better eyes."

Before Sam could respond, Dean frowned, lowering the photographs in his hand. "Gabriel, man, what's going on?"

"Huh? I was just paying you a compliment."

"No, I mean that." He pointed to Gabriel's fingers, still clutching the swan picture.

Gabriel's entire hand was trembling.

Slowly, Gabriel put down the photograph. "See, Sam? Dean-o's got twenty/twenty vision."

Now that Sam was looking too, it should have been obvious. How could he have failed to see? "Gabriel, what's the matter?"

"You mean, like, about this?" Gabriel glanced at his shivering hand again. "Too much caffeine."

"Yeah, right." Sam pushed himself to his feet and offered his own hand. Gabriel, looking defeated, allowed Sam to pull him up.

Dean stood too. "Did I do something stupid? Was it what I said about getting laid?"

Gabriel shook his head. "I used that gigantor Star Trek mug for coffee before coming up here."

Sam raised an eyebrow at Dean. "You still have that thing? It's chipped and filthy."

"No, it's vintage, and it saves me a lot of refills. Gabe - you need to step out for a sec?"

"A sec," Gabriel muttered. "According to your brother, at least."

"Well, sometimes my little bro gets things right. Give him a chance. And Sam - I'm on call. Yell if you need me."

Sam nodded.

Once he and Gabriel were on the staircase landing, Sam studied Gabriel's face, wondering if there was something else he hadn't observed. "Crap, I'm sorry I didn't notice. What's going on?"

Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't think I should tell you."

"I can grab Dean if it hits too close to home," said Sam, conscious of having confessed only a week earlier to feeling disconcerted whenever Gabriel's descriptions of Hell bore too strong a resemblance to his own.

Gabriel debated for a moment. Then: "By some chance did you ever get buried alive?"

Sam, not having expected Gabriel to be so upfront, was slightly taken aback. "Did I ever - "

"Like, in a coffin."

"I … no. No, that never happened to me. There was the occasional drowning, I guess."

"Really? Wouldn't've pegged my brother as the aquatic type."

"It was usually body fluids."

"Ah. That makes more sense. Anyway, you wanted to know what's up. That's what's up."

"And something in the attic brought you back to being buried alive? What, was it a picture you found?"

Gabriel sighed. "No. That room was practically a box, Sam. A box made out of wood."

Sam frowned. "But … the entire bunker is mostly wood."

"Not with ceilings low enough to lay the palm of even my hand on."

Sam tried to take all of this in. He let himself envision the process of being thrown into a coffin and -

No. It was definitely better that he not try to picture that.

"Gabriel," said Sam, "What could possibly make Asmodeus - "

"I annoyed him to death. All I did for the first couple years was throw around cheap one-liners and spit in his face. But I sort of lost my motivation after one too many blows to the spleen. Anyway, he'd slam me into this casket now and again when he got mad. Left me there to suffocate for hours at a time. He made sure I had at least a solid teaspoon in me, of course: otherwise that would've been the end of his grace machine. But man, could that guy screw with my head. Keep me in my cell but still dole out this whole imaginary punishment that couldn't possibly have felt more real."

Something about Gabriel's face - the way he was avoiding Sam's eyes, perhaps, or the tension in his jaw - made Sam think there might be more to the story. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. And he …" Gabriel took a step back to lean against the staircase railing. His eyes passed over the walls, the carpet, the ceiling - everything but Sam. "And sometimes he'd crawl in with me."

The words made Sam feel sick; the image tempted him to go back and get Dean. Still, this was different from the discomfort he experienced when something sounded familiar: this was the unique feeling he experienced every time he imagined what Gabriel's torture might have really looked like had Sam been there to witness it. "We don't have to go back in there, okay?"

Gabriel shook his head. "Whatever. Not like you need me throwing a hissy fit while you guys are trying to accomplish something practical. Right now I'm just … gonna go read or something."

He pushed himself away from the railing and headed down the stairs.

When Gabriel realized Sam was following, he stopped. "Knock it off. You were having a nice time. Besides, I don't need Nanny McPhee to make sure I circumvent catatonia."

Sam shrugged. "What can I say? As much as it pains me to have to put off reading about chopping up bloodthirsty waterfowl, I know you too well to leave you alone."

Gabriel rolled his eyes, but Sam could tell he was relieved.

A few minutes later, Gabriel was perched on the edge of Sam's bed. There was a glass of water on the nightstand and a bucket at his feet.

"Sam," he said, "You've been doing this for way too long."

Sam sat down beside him. "You know I don't mind."

"No. What I know is you're too altruistic for your own good."

"It won't do you any good to bitch yourself out for something you can't help."

Gabriel looked down at his lap. "Maybe. I don't know, sometimes I think it'd be better if I just stayed in one place. Nothing new to shock me into a psychotic attack. Just me and the wiles of my own conscience."

"Being confined to one area all the time? By yourself? Alone with your thoughts? Sure, Gabriel. That sounds like a great idea."

"Well, it would be a lot worse for me, but better for you. I mean …" He faltered. "Listen, Sam, are you sure you can handle this?"

"Yes. If I can't, I'll tell you."

"Oh yeah, because you're so self-aware and never fail to notice when you've reached your tipping point."

Sam rolled his eyes. "All right, fine; would it make you feel better if I went and found somebody else?"

"No!" Gabriel sounded so jarred by this suggestion that Sam wished he hadn't offered it. "I just want to make sure you're not secretly thinking about your own stint in Dad's basement."

"I'm good, I promise," Sam assured him. "Now listen: why didn't you say anything about being in the attic? We would've gotten you out of there a lot sooner if you'd told us you were feeling off."

"'Feeling off.' I like your style of diplomacy. I was - I was, I don't know. Experimenting."

"Experimenting? Experimenting with what?"

"Experimenting with … with trying to reign it in, I guess."

Sam blinked. "That doesn't sound like a good plan."

"Just a clinical trial. Too many side effects. Abort mission."

"Look, Gabriel, you should've just asked for help."

"I could have, but that would've compromised the integrity of the experiment. Come on Sam, you went to college; you know what good research looks like."

"What about now? Have you calmed down a little?"

Gabriel's face fell, and he turned his gaze to the floor. "I'm sorry, Sam."

"What? What does that mean?"

"It means no, I'm not feeling better."

Sam reached across to the nightstand. "Here." He offered Gabriel the glass of water.

Gabriel accepted it and took a sip. "Thanks."

"You aren't getting enough to eat," Sam reminded him, "So try to keep your breakfast down if you can."

Gabriel nodded. Then: "That dickwad. Asmodeus and his stupid torture and his stupid grace extraction and his stupid little coffin."

"Well, stupid Asmodeus is gone."

There was silence for a while as Sam monitored Gabriel for signs of distress. But Gabriel remained impassive, eyes fixed on the opposite wall.

Finally, without shifting his gaze, Gabriel spoke up. "I was just low enough on grace that I needed to breathe, but not so low that I'd be a goner if I didn't. Which meant that Asmodeus could keep me in there as long as he wanted and he wouldn't lose me. So I couldn't breathe, but I couldn't die either, and … Sam, being trapped in a coffin while you're still in a cage is, like, meta-captivity. And there's no captivity like the halfway point between breathing and dying." Gabriel hugged himself. "Then there were the times he climbed in too. We were like those Russian nesting dolls. Except the casket was so small you'd have had to cram two smaller dolls into the same bigger doll at once."

"Gabriel …"

"If he was feeling particularly sadistic, he'd play the force-feeding game. In which case not only was I unable to breathe, I also had my throat crammed full of my internal organs. The ones he'd sliced out with the archangel blade."

"I remember," said Sam in a strained voice.

"And that sucker cut just hard enough to break, but not deep enough to kill. Can't imagine how he managed to tear all those body parts out and still make me swallow them, like I actually had a digestive system. But yeah, sometimes, when I was in there, it wasn't just me. It was Asmodeus and a mouth full of viscera."

Sam made a noise of disgust.

"Which means," Gabriel barreled on, "That if I'd had any way out - out of the coffin, out of his hold, out of Hell - I'd have taken it."

"Can't blame you for that."

"Except the thing is, I - " But Gabriel caught himself.

The self-consciousness in his face made Sam uneasy. "You what?"

Gabriel fidgeted. "I, uh … it's just, when I was in that room, and I got this feeling of being in a coffin again, I couldn't … the first thing that came to mind was something … something I'd found in one of those translations you guys have been having me work on."

Sam waited, wishing Gabriel would be as straightforward as he had been on the landing.

"So I, uh," Gabriel went on, avoiding Sam's eyes, "You remember how I had that little spaz-fest a couple months back where I went on a diatribe about how I was going to look for the archangel blade?"

Sam's blood ran cold. "Gabriel, what did you do?"

"Nothing! Never got my hands on it. But the Men of Letters had this book that said - it said that for an archangel with low enough grace, the angel blade can be just as … just as ... effective."

Time froze.

Wrestling with vertigo, Sam managed to ask, "Why are you telling me this?"

Gabriel didn't answer.

"Gabriel, have you been trying to find - "

"Sort of. I mean … it's not like it'd be that well-hidden. Castiel has one. He holds onto it; I never see him take it out. But I know it's there, and - "

Sam jumped to his feet and seized Gabriel by the shoulders. "We've talked about this."

"Don't!" Gabriel shrieked, jerking back.

Sam's stomach twisted with guilt. The fear brightening Gabriel's eyes was enough to shake off the initial alarm of the confession. "Hey, I'm sorry Gabe; I'm not mad at you."

"You were last time," Gabriel replied in a trembling voice.

"I wasn't - no, I wasn't; I was upset, but I wasn't angry. Hey, it's okay. I won't touch you, I promise."

Gabriel continued to stare at him, terrified, vulnerable, until he began to relax just enough that Sam could tell he was no longer panicked. "Sam - can I tell you the rest or are you going to freak out?"

"No, I want to hear it." Sam sat down, putting a little more distance between them this time. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm not mad, Gabriel. I'm not."

Gabriel pulled his knees up to his chest. Sam thought he saw him shivering, but Gabriel was curled so tightly it was difficult to tell. "It's - it was the only thing I could think about when I was up there. When I started to feel the coffin again. It was almost like I - it was like he was there. Could practically feel his breath on my cheek. Psychotic BS, per usual, but there you have it. Because I remember just clawing at the walls of that coffin and thinking I needed a way out. Any way out. Sam, if I'd gotten my hands on the blade, I'd have - " He stopped to draw a shaky breath. "Anyway, I know that if I were to try that now, you'd think it was your fault."

While Sam wasn't thrilled that Gabriel's primary incentive for keeping the blades away was the integrity of Sam's self-image, he decided not to argue. After all, Gabriel was right: Sam would take the blame if something were to happen.

"I don't know what to do," Gabriel muttered, lowering his chin to his knees and avoiding Sam's eyes. "I don't know what's wrong with me, Sam. I'm trying to get better, if you can believe it. I am trying. But I can try, and try, and keep trying, and … and I still can't manage to convince myself that I even deserve to try. You know, why should I, when I'm … what I am?" He tensed up, and Sam could see that he was struggling to maintain composure. "And all the while you keep telling me I've got it wrong. That Asmodeus made me see myself as a maggot when I'm not one. I …" He blinked, features twisted. "How come I don't believe you, Sam?"

Sam was tempted to hug him, but knew this wasn't the time. "I think maybe you need to hear it more often."

"I hear it every time I come running to you to cry over the stinking corpse of my dignity!" Gabriel buried his face in his knees. "Who gets crammed into a coffin for hours at a time unless they've done something to warrant that kind of punishment? Or is it something I am? Not something I did but something I'm made of?"

Sam frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean …" Gabriel looked up, and Sam was horrified to find his face tear-streaked and splotchy. "What if I'm just - he made me feel like I was so gross, and maybe I am. Maybe I was created that way. Maybe Dad screwed up with me, I don't know. But sometimes I think there's something seriously wrong with whatever it is I am."

"No. Gabriel, that's not right." When Gabriel didn't respond, Sam asked, "Would it be okay for me to touch you?"

Gabriel only stared at him, but didn't object. When Sam put a hand on his knee, there was no jerking back or crying out.

"I know that feeling," Sam told him.

Gabriel gave a derisive laugh. "No you don't. Not you."

Sam was confused - and slightly disconcerted - by the surety in Gabriel's voice "No, I do know, Gabriel."

"I don't see it. I don't believe it. Not you, Sam. I know Lucifer had his fun, but no way could he drill something like that into your conscience. You're too strong for that. I'm falling apart, but I know how to call a spade a spade."

Sam shook his head. "Anybody could feel it. Seriously, anybody. I think all of us have felt it at some point. Even Jack. Especially Jack. But you wouldn't know it from just talking to him, would you? From just watching him?"

Gabriel looked frustrated. "Not you. You're put-together, more put-together than I'll ever be again no matter how many centuries I spend trying to shake this off. And it's so easy to see that you're not like that, Sam; it's easy enough that there's no way anyone - not even you - could ever look at you the way I look at myself."

Sam gave a sad smile. "Thought you knew me better than that."

"All right Sam, fine - even if you do have that kind of delusion, it's still not true. Not in your case. But look at me; I … even if I wasn't trash before he got me, I am now. You can't go through all that and come out anything but a disease. At least I couldn't." He gazed down at Sam's hand, still rested on his knee. "The really stupid thing is I still want to be okay. Or, I don't know, I think I do."

"What? How's that stupid?"

"Did you not listen to me? I don't deserve to get better, Sam; that's … that's just abusing fate. It's how things are; it's how I am."

"All right, stop. Come here." Sam wrapped him in an embrace. Gabriel remained rigid for a few moments, then let go of his knees and leaned into Sam.

"You need to say something," Sam murmured. "You can't slice your way out of a bad memory with a knife, okay? You need to tell me, or someone else, when something freaks you out. Please. If you don't, everything is going to get worse."

"But what if I tell you, and you can't take it; and then I tell Dean, and he can't take it; and then I drag my sorry ass to my brother, and he can't listen to those memories either? I mean you guys have all been through hell in one way or another. Even if it's not Hell hell."

"But it isn't like we don't do what we can for each other."

"I know, but - but I have so many guts to spill, you know? So many stories from over eight hundred years of prison."

"No, don't worry about that; we're fine."

"Weak argument. Try again."

"Look, if we kept everything to ourselves all the time, how would we function?"

"I'm pretty sure Dean keeps everything to himself."

"No he doesn't. Not all the time."

Gabriel considered. "No, you're right. He told me a little that day you and Cas were out and he had to deal with me."

Sam smiled, remembering the alarm of arriving home to find Gabriel panicked and sick, and the equally surprising realization that Dean had it under control. "Exactly. And we know you would do the same for any of us."

There was a moment of silence, and then Gabriel said, "Yeah. I think I would."

"That's what I mean," Sam told him. "We're not here to babysit you until you're grown up enough to take care of yourself. We don't do it because we have to, or because we think we should. It's that we want to. So please - stop shoving things out of sight until one of us spots something wrong. And," Sam added when Gabriel opened his mouth, "Don't try to make it so that something is wrong and we just can't see it. Tell us. Say something. Even if it's 'This room's creeping me out; I want a second to myself.'"

Gabriel offered a weak smile. "You wouldn't leave me by myself."

Sam tugged himself away to hold Gabriel at arm's length. "I might if I thought I could trust you to tell me when something's wrong. But by the time you admit to it, you've worked yourself up so bad you need someone to bring you back to reality."

Gabriel shook his head. "I've said it before and I'll say it again: if I keep getting emergency assistance, I won't learn how to help myself."

"Gabriel, you're still bleeding out. Don't get so worried about not being able to bandage your own wounds. Once they're cleaned up and you're better, then you can handle whatever's next."

Gabriel didn't say anything for a moment. Then he replied, "That feeling - that feeling like I'm some kind of - of insect - it's in my DNA at this point. But the nice thing … I mean, it really doesn't look like you guys have an ulterior motive."

"Of course we don't."

"I always figured you'd need something from me, or get fed up with me, or realize there was no point wasting your energy on something hopeless - even if you still cared. Sometimes I still think you'll come to your senses and call it a day, but you definitely seem to mean well." Gabriel gave a tight smile. "I kinda like that. I didn't before, but when you said you thought you were screwing things up even worse for me, and you figured it'd be better to just throw me at someone else's feet … it took some of the pressure off, you know? I mean it took pressure off of me. Because now I know I was right - right about you having limits, right about how it never works to turn someone into the angelic version of flypaper. And in a way, I was glad that just now Dean-o was the first to see through my lousy cover-up. It shows that you don't have your eyes on me every second of the day. That's good, Sam."

Sam opted not to mention that he'd felt guilty when Dean was the first to point out Gabriel's distress.

"But at the same time," Gabriel continued, "I … I guess what you said made me think I was wrong, too. About who I am, what he made me into. About me, just me being here, being alive - wrong about me being one of your limits on my own."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "That's great. How much of it is you telling me what you think I want to hear?"

"Oh, you know me. Wanted to get you nice and comfortable by opening the floor with a schtick about how blade-happy I am."

"All right, all right. I was just checking."

"And besides - don't you remember me telling you how much I hate lying?"

"Well yeah, but I was pretty sure you meant lying to yourself."

"Can't say I relish lying to any of you either - not this late in the game. I mean - when I think about it, one of the worst things he did - even with everything else - was making me feel like I was guilty of something. You know, I'd look at him the wrong way, or ask for water, or cry, and he'd - once in a while he'd go on a diatribe about how I needed to understand my station, that I was corrupting an already corrupted place and was lucky he hadn't killed me. He'd tell me I deserved worse than a locked coffin - convinced me that being buried dead was worse than being buried alive, and only through his mercy was I able to keep breathing when I came out." Gabriel's features hardened. "That's part of why I don't lie to you. Or to your brother, or to Cas. Because in my head I know that that's wrong. Something I could be punished for. If you found out, what would I do then?"

"We wouldn't - "

"And I believed him," Gabriel went on bitterly, "Or tried to. That I was lucky he wasn't killing me. Lucky he spared me the worst. I figured I got something wrong, you know? I figured if I could see what he was saying as true, then maybe I'd be a little more at peace. But of course part of all this was knowing I wasn't supposed to feel at peace. So I was meant to take solace in that too. And telling myself I was supposed to suffer - telling myself I had to be unhappy - was it bad if I eventually decided I was grateful for the way things were? If I was dissatisfied, but I wasn't meant to be happy, then … well, how was I supposed to feel content with not feeling content?"

"Whoa, whoa - hey." Sam held up a hand. "Stop trying to do the math. Believe two and two makes five all you want, but you could drive yourself nuts trying to show anyone what it looks like. All you're going to do is disprove yourself. So ... keep trying to collect evidence that any of what Asmodeus told you makes sense. All you'll find is that it didn't. But the more you keep believing it did, just - just convincing yourself that it has to add up - the more frustrated you're going to get. The more you're going to hate yourself for not being able to understand. Better to just take it for what it is: a made-up story with nothing to hold it together."

Gabriel lowered his head to his hands. "How can you make so much sense but Asmodeus still seems right?"

"I guess he made it dangerous to trust your own logic, huh? Hurt you if you said anything he didn't agree with?"

Gabriel nodded, then straightened up. "Ah, man. Sorry. Didn't mean to get off-track."

"No, it's okay. You can talk about whatever you want."

"Provided I tell it to the right person," Gabriel reminded him. "Can't imagine Luci's way of thinking was any more Newtonian."

Sam peered closely at him. "Are you shaking again? You need to try and relax, Gabriel. Get Asmodeus out of your head."

"But he … he's not …" Gabriel lowered his face to his knees, hands gripping his hair as he tried to ground himself in his own physical form. "Okay. I can try."

Sam rested a hand on his back and could feel the tremor.

"I have a really annoying question," Gabriel muttered into his knees.

"What's that?"

"Can you give me the bucket?"

Sam's heart sank. "Gabriel - "

"Don't. Just don't, Sam. I can't do anything about it."

Sam bent to retrieve it. "Why go into so much detail if all that'll happen is you'll get sick?"

"I've had everything in my head for too long. It's like it's … like it's spilling over or something." Gabriel raised his head and accepted the bucket. "Once I start, I can't stop. It's like everything else: the second it comes into my brain, there's no slowing it down."

"No, I understand, I just ... I just wish there was another way for you to get all this out. Talking doesn't really seem to do much. But this is bad for you. I don't know - you should cry or scream or something."

"Oh, a new activity. I've been meaning to shake up my routine."

"No, specifically for moments like this. When you feel everything building up after you've talked about what you went through."

"I don't know. But think about it, Sam: say you weren't a hunter, weren't used to seeing violence. So Dean's body turns up one day, intestines gouged out, fingers and toes sliced off. Would you rather cry and scream on the spot, or you think you'd have a more physical reaction, huh?"

Sam shuddered.

"If I feel like Asmodeus is here right this second," Gabriel went on, face pale, "Like I'm locked in the coffin right here and right now - what d'you think that's gonna do to me? If it were in the past, sure, I could change the way I react; but it's not in the past. It's in front of me, all over me, inside of me. There's no option to look away. So yeah, it's not exactly easy to control the way I respond."

"I understand, Gabe," Sam said softly. "Really. I do. I'm sorry."

Gabriel avoided his eyes.

"So I'll keep saying it," Sam told him. "It's over now. You're okay. We're all here to protect you - we're here, and he isn't."

"Yeah, I … I know that, but …"

Sam squeezed his shoulder. "I gotcha, all right?"

Gabriel swallowed.

"Try and let it pass," Sam suggested.

Gabriel took a couple of deep breaths, trying to quell the nausea. Then he said, "No, I can't. Sorry, I - I can't." He leaned over the bucket and shut his eyes. "You don't have to stay if it bugs you. I wouldn't stick around if I had to choose."

"No, no," Sam said hastily, "It doesn't bug me. It just makes me worry about you."

Gabriel spat into the bucket. "Just so you know, I'm as tired of this as you are. I hate it. I hate everything about all of this, everything that's happened since I got out. Everything about me."

"No."

"Yeah. What, does that surprise you or - " Gabriel was interrupted by a seizure of gagging.

"All right," Sam murmured, "It's all right." He held the bucket in place while Gabriel vomited. Sam hadn't exactly spoken the truth: this always grossed him out, especially because it tended to go on for a long time.

Not to mention he felt a little ashamed that he hadn't been able to prevent things from getting out of hand. That was partly why he had suggested he leave Gabriel to the care of Dean and Cas. Sam didn't always have the constitution Gabriel needed in whoever was watching over him.

But one instinct often overrode the other.

Sam was wrenched out of his thoughts when Gabriel began to gasp for air.

"Hey," said Sam, "Relax."

"Sam - "

"Ssh, Gabe, it's okay."

"Sam - I can't - Sam, I can't breathe - "

"Of course you can," Sam said in a gentle voice.

"I can't!"

"If you couldn't breathe, you wouldn't be able to talk."

Gabriel let out a sob. "I can't breathe!"

Sam wasn't sure what to do, especially given that it really wasn't easy for Gabriel to breathe as he threw up. "It'll be harder to breathe if you don't try to calm down."

Gabriel moaned, then vomited again.

"Gabriel, you're not - you're not stuck anywhere, Gabriel. It's over; he's gone and you're free."

"Sam, I can't breathe," Gabriel pleaded once more, bile dripping from his lips. "I can't, I can't, I - "

"Stop. Hey - stop. It's okay, Gabriel; everything's okay."

"I can't breathe!"

Sam removed the bucket and put it on the floor. "Slow down. Slow your breathing. Then it'll feel normal again, I promise."

Gabriel's pupils were dilated, his face so pale Sam could have sworn it was nearly transparent.

"You trust me, don't you?" Sam asked. "That's what you said earlier. Is it still true?"

Gabriel gave a shaky nod.

"Then believe me when I say you can breathe."

Gabriel whimpered.

"Come on, give it your best shot."

For a split second, Gabriel seemed on the verge of choking. Then he drew a shivery breath, not quite deep enough to soothe him, but decidedly a real breath. He coughed, then tried a second time.

"You're out of there, Gabriel," Sam repeated. "You can breathe; you can move. Asmodeus is long gone. Keep telling yourself that and I promise eventually you'll realize it's true."

Gabriel grabbed Sam by the sleeve, trying to ground himself.

"Just you and me," Sam reminded him. "Just you and me. No demons. No monsters. Only people who care about you."

Gabriel didn't let go, but a little color slowly returned to his face.

"Come on," Sam murmured, "Lie down for a minute."

Gabriel nodded, then tried to stand. But he buckled over almost immediately and Sam, not all that surprised, caught him before he could collapse. "Are you okay?"

Gabriel nodded. Sam helped ease him onto his back.

"Didn't - " Gabriel's voice was almost inaudible. He cleared his throat. "Didn't mean to - "

"It's okay. You were right; it's not under your control. Here - sit up a little so you can take a sip of water."

Gabriel obliged, allowing Sam hold the water glass.

"There we go," Sam said, setting it on the nightstand as Gabriel lay back down. "We'll try more in a few minutes, okay? You want to take a nap?"

Gabriel shivered as if overcome by a sudden chill. "Definitely not. Nightmares'll be bad enough later."

Sam surveyed him, examining the weariness in his face and the fear in his eyes. It was as though Gabriel lay in a sickbed: a heart monitor and IV would have fit right in.

Sam had a sudden vision of Gabriel lying like this, life ebbing away, peering up at him only after it was too late.

"Sam?"

Sam blinked.

"Sam, what is it?" Gabriel asked.

"Huh?"

"You looked like you were going to cry."

Sam shook his head. "No. No, I'm okay."

Gabriel's brow creased in concern. "Are you sure this didn't bring up … you know … Lucifer stuff?"

"Yeah, no, it's all right; it's - it's not Lucifer. I was … I guess I was thinking about how I don't want you to find them. The blades."

Gabriel pushed himself upright again, this time into a proper sitting position. "I trust you to keep them away from me."

"Can I trust you to stop looking for them?"

Gabriel glanced away. "I don't know. I can try."

Sam sighed. That would have to do for now. "Here, drink a little more."

After the second sip of water, Gabriel looked at him. "Sam."

"What is it?" Sam was worried Gabriel was going to ask for the bucket again.

"I don't want you to think … I mean … " Gabriel paused, considering how to frame his response. "Sam, Asmodeus did so much to me. Stuff I can't talk about. Not to you, not to anyone. I just don't want you to think that …"

"You don't want me to think what?"

Gabriel glanced away. "I don't want you to think I'm doing this for no reason. Getting so scared all the time. He did … he did a crap-ton more than just stuff me into a coffin."

Sam stared, wondering if he had heard correctly. "Okay. Right. Glad you cleared that up. I was just thinking how being buried alive is child's play."

"I thought I could put up with a lot," Gabriel said hoarsely. "I thought I was stronger than it turns out I am. I don't know; I feel like it shouldn't have affected me the way it did - at least not the way it's affecting me now. Other angels might have been able to bounce back a lot faster than I have."

Sam gave an uneasy laugh. "He tortured you. For centuries. He beat the life out of you - in every possible way. And as for anything you haven't said - don't keep it to yourself. Otherwise you'll be haunted by it later and end up like this."

Gabriel shook his head. "It's too … the other stuff … I can't. It's all disgusting, Sam. And so am I. You guys don't need to see any more of that than you already have."

"Gabriel," Sam replied, "You know you're not disgusting. We've gone over this more times than I can count."

Gabriel shook his head, looking back down at his lap. "I don't know."

"Hey, you said you trusted me. Keep trusting me. You're not disgusting. Anyway - you should talk to us."

"There's some of it that I just … I can't."

"Then will you wait for it to hit you out of nowhere, like just now?"

Gabriel edged towards the opposite side of the bed. "Don't, Sam. Don't make me tell you what I really, really don't want to."

"Okay." Sam softened his voice. "Okay, it's okay; I won't. You don't have to be scared. I just want you to keep in mind that we're around if you decide you're ready."

Gabriel relaxed slightly. "Thank you."

Sam offered more water, and Gabriel accepted. Then he lay back down, curling up on his side and staring at the wall again.

"You know," said Sam, "Sometimes you dream more if you're short on sleep. Even if you do have nightmares, they'll be worse later if you don't rest now."

"Then I won't sleep tonight either. Problem solved."

"What if I wake you up after an hour or so?"

Gabriel thought about it. "Half an hour." A beat, and then: "A lot of that stuff in the attic was pretty interesting. Sorry I had to back out."

"We can still look through it together. I'll take a box downstairs. For now you need to rejuvenate. And in an hour - "

"Half an hour."

"- I'll wake you up." Sam got to his feet. "I'll be right back, okay? Let me just clean out the bucket."

Gabriel sputtered. "What the everliving frick-frack, Sam? Let me take it." He climbed off the bed. "Let me at least do that much."

"No offense," said Sam, "But I want to wait a while before I let you run off unsupervised."

"Look, just because I'm a little less than stable doesn't mean I need - "

"I know. I know, Gabe. But humor me, all right?"

When Sam returned, he found Gabriel hunched on the bed with his arms wound around his knees, eyes glazed and still.

"Hey." Concerned, Sam moved closer. "Are you with me?"

Gabriel looked up. "Sam."

"What? What's wrong? Did something - "

"Is this really better?"

Sam frowned, trying to understand the question.

"I mean," Gabriel went on, observing Sam's puzzlement, "Me eating and making myself sick; me sleeping and having nightmares. Is it better to put myself through that - to put all of you through it - instead of just waiting a little longer for my grace?"

While Gabriel had never suggested this before, Sam knew the question would come up sooner or later. "No, I don't think it's better to wait without doing anything."

"I can stay awake," Gabriel argued. "I do it anyway. And I'm almost never hungry."

"Think about what it'll do to your behavior," Sam pointed out. "You'll get a hundred times worse."

Gabriel's stiffened. "How much worse do you think I could get, Sam?"

"I know you remember as well as I do how much worse you were before." Sam smiled. "You're doing so much bet - "

"The hardest part is understanding I could put a stop to it."

Sam's flesh crawled. So it had come back to this.

He strove to keep his face passive and his voice gentle. "What if I said that to you?"

"Doesn't matter what that'd be like; it's not you saying it, it's me. Two very, very different situations."

"Gabriel, you shouldn't - "

"I already have some sense of how it would feel." Gabriel spoke more to himself than to Sam. "Asmodeus made sure no square inch of me was left untouched by the archangel blade. Really, how much different would it feel if I were to rewrite what he did without him being the one to do it?"

"Cut it out." Sam's could feel his composure sliding away. "Gabriel, cut it out. Talking to yourself like that isn't going to get you anywhere."

Gabriel slid his knees away from his hands, adjusting himself to sit cross-legged, returning his attention to Sam. "I almost wish I hadn't told you any of this. Not about the coffin, not about the blade, not about everything he did to me, not about - "

"If you really wished that," Sam interrupted, "You wouldn't have said anything in the first place."

Gabriel raised his eyebrows. "Wouldn't I? We all say things in the heat of the moment, Sam."

It took Sam a second to realize why this response stirred up an odd mixture of joy and grief. "Gabriel, get some rest. I'll make sure you don't sleep too long."

Gabriel appeared uncertain. Finally, he shut his eyes, and immediately some of the tension in his face drained away.

"No blankets?" asked Sam.

"Movement," Gabriel muttered. "Need to be able to move around without getting tangled in the sheets."

"I'll be here to disentangle you."

"Nope. No blankets."

Sam perched on the edge of the mattress and reached down to touch Gabriel's arm. "You got out. You escaped, and now you can move as much as you want. This is just the next step, Gabriel. Just … just another kind of movement. We can see it through together, okay?"

Gabriel opened his eyes to examine Sam's face - hunting for lies, for impatience, for mockery, for loathing.

Gabriel fell asleep like that, trying to figure out what Sam really intended, with Sam remaining silent so that Gabriel could figure out the truth for himself.

It was hard to tell what Gabriel decided before he lost consciousness entirely. All Sam knew was that within a few short moments, and for the first time since leaving the attic, Gabriel's breathing was slow and even.