8th story in the Gabriel's Recovery series. In which Gabriel has anxiety problems when surrounded by people and has a chat with Ketch. Dean cooks for everyone.
Crowd Control
The two days following the shopping spree passed by extremely slowly for Gabriel. He had found he had an aversion to being in a room with more than 6 people in it and tended to start getting all panicky if put in a situation out of that number.
Of course, that depended on the size of the room, and for some reason it didn't tend to happen while outside unless in a crowd.
So, he had found himself skipping meals just to miss being in the library surrounded by others.
Instead, he had taken up roaming the halls of the Men of Letters bunker, snooping around his new surroundings. He had not expected to find Ketch lying on a bed in what he assumed to be the infirmary, considering the look of both the human man and the room itself.
He was eating lunch someone must have brought in for him, awkwardly holding the spoon of soup in his off hand, while the other was bandaged and kept close to his side. Bruises covered his face and torso. Ketch had gotten away from Asmodeus with less damage, and he had seen the beginnings of a bad beating from the demon prince happen to the man.
He had meant to stay quiet and sneak out before he was spotted, but he made a noise deep in his throat, and Ketch's head turned in his direction.
"Hello?" Ketch called out and, not seeing the point of keeping behind the wall any longer, Gabriel stepped full into the room.
He waved awkwardly to the obviously injured man. "Uh, hi..."
Ketch blinked slowly at him, before his eyes lit up with recognition. Had he looked so bad when he had been rescued that how he normally looked was that much of a change? Damn, he was suddenly glad he hadn't seen himself in a mirror in 7 years.
"Oh! Gabriel, right? Well, I must say, you look much better than the last time I saw you."
Gabriel let out a huff of breath that was supposed to be a laugh. "Yeah, well, you look worse. What happened to you?"
Ketch shrugged. "I got ambushed by some of Michael's followers and tortured. Not as bad as it could have been. I was more worried over Charlie than myself. Me they were trying to break, her they were trying to get information from. But they only had us for a few hours, so nothing much happened except a bit of a beating to me. Well, Charlie had her mind sifted through, which is probably more traumatic really. This isn't the first beating I have taken."
Nodding, Gabriel slowly walked to a nearby seat and sat down, suddenly tired of standing. He didn't know what else to say. He thought maybe he should thank the man for the rescue, but he knew he had just been used as leverage.
"What are you doing in here, anyway? You looked nicely healed up."
He blinked at the man and shook his head. "Meals are a bit too crowed for me. I was waiting for lunch to finish to go and grab something to eat."
"So you decided to come visit me?"
Gabriel shook his head. "I didn't even know you were in here. I was so out of it a lot of the time until recently, I didn't recognise you at the camp. I wasn't able to take much in while I was in the state you found me in. I was just looking around."
Ketch nodded and gave him a long look. "You're doing remarkably well for someone who went through what you did. I knew a woman once who was in a similar state. I was told to get information out of her and I couldn't. She was too broken by what happened. She never got the chance to heal."
Gabriel snorted at that, because he didn't doubt the assassin at all on that point. "Put her out of her misery, I take it? Yeah, well, I bounce back."
Ketch grinned at that, and Gabriel could see the spot in his mouth where he had lost the tooth. Too much had happened to replace it right away. "I can see that. Like I said, you look remarkably good."
Gabriel took that for what it was, the truth. Compared to the state he was in, he bet he looked remarkably well. He still wished Ketch would stop saying it though. "Yeah. Maybe I'll start feeling it soon enough."
Ketch chuckled at that. "You're talking. By the time I left, you'd had the stitches out, but you weren't talking. You never even opened your mouth. I'd say you are feeling better."
He blinked at that, because it hadn't really occurred to him that it was something people may have worried about. Was it possible that he may have lost his ability to speak from what had happened, and never opened his mouth again? He wondered what would have happened if he had decided not to correct Sam that time in the room.
He could still be a mess cowering on the floor between the wall and the night stand by his bed. He could be stuck in his own head, refusing to listen to anything going on around him and rocking with his arms pressed tightly to his knees. He would be nothing, truly nothing.
He turned tail and ran out of the room so fast, he almost thought he flew. He hadn't moved his wings though for anything other than balance. He quickly made it to his room, slammed the door behind him, fell onto his bed and burst into loud, distressed tears.
What if he never got his voice back if he did lose it?
He only them remembered that Castiel had been worried over that exact same thing that night he had been in the camp in the alt universe, after he had woken up and taken his shift with Lucifer guarding the people.
It didn't take him long to calm down, mainly because he had very little energy to do so.
It was then he had come to a decision. He needed to get over his damned fear of people and rejoin society. The people living in the bunker seemed to be a good place to meant, he would try his hand at joining them al for dinner that night.
Dinner started at 5 that night. Sam had been surprised he had decided to join everyone for the meal when he had come to his room to warn him that dinner time started in 15 minutes.
He didn't bother changing out of the clothes he was in, following Sam out of the roo and into the kitchen to look at what there was to eat. His stomach growled at him, deciding he shouldn't have skipped lunch to go cry instead. It was roast lamb and vegetables. Lots of it.
He moved out to the library, where meals were done now, since there was more room. Enough for everyone here to have a seat and still be comfortable. Most people were already there, and he only just realised he knew none of the names, except for Bobby. He didn't even know which one of these humans was the Charlie that Ketch had mentioned.
He spotted a seat that was open between Rowena and the end of the table, Sam seated just across from the red headed witch. He took the seat, glad he had a spot that was easy to get away from if he got panicky again.
Jack quickly grabbed the spot across from him so he didn't have to look at a stranger if he lifted his head.
Dean and Castiel soon came out, carrying trays with food on them. Soon everyone was being served a plate of the food, everything neatly rationed so everyone got the same. He was the last that was served, before Dean took the seat at the head of the tables, right near where Gabriel was and he was suddenly wondering if this was a good idea.
The smell of food though was overpowering as he had skipped too many meals the past few days to do so and still be comfortable. His insides were twisting with hunger. He picked up the knife and fork he was handed and soon was ignoring everyone around him in favour of eating.
Okay, so maybe he wasn't comfortable with this setup, but he was at least still in control of himself. He wasn't having a bad go of it either, still being completely in control of all his actions and not going into a full on anxiety bender.
He could do this. He would do this. And he would get better and not feel so awkward. He may even learn who this Charlie person is.
But right then, he was still far too wary around others to ask.
For the first time since he joined Team Free Will though, he actually felt like he had a shot at getting back to his life, even if it wouldn't be exactly the same as it used to be.
This wasn't so bad.
As soon as he had finished what was on his plate, he got up and left to go back to his room, not staying to chat and get to know anyone.
He could survive small steps. He would survive this ordeal of people and come through the other side with new friends. He would learn how to work a crowd again. But first he had to get used to controlling himself around a crowd.
He patted himself on the back as he lay down on his bed and grabbed the book he was reading off his night stand. He thought he had made a pretty damn good start.
He refused to become nothing.